Combining two types of drugs prescribed for osteoporosis does not produce a synergistic benefit in treating the disease, according to a study headed by a UCSF researcher.
The study disproved a previously untested but widespread belief among bone researchers that combining the two types of drugs — bone-building parathyroid hormone (PTH) and bone resorption inhibiting bisphosphonates — should interact in a beneficial way for patients. The combination is no better than either drug alone and
Sudden price spikes have led to speculation that the United States is facing a critical shortage of natural gas. But a new study by Stanford University’s Energy Modeling Forum (EMF) concludes that gas supplies are likely to meet growing demand in coming decades, if policy-makers are able to strike a balance between environmental protection and the need for new energy sources.
“Recent volatile natural gas prices do not foreshadow a pending, long-term crisis in future natural gas supplie
Protein contains both ’on’ and ’off’ switches
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill scientists have discovered a unique protein on the surface membrane of plant cells, one that apparently contains both “on” and “off” molecular switches. Apart from its unique structure, the protein may be the first cell surface membrane receptor ever discovered in plants that regulates a key protein complex involved in cell growth and division. Known as the heterotrimeric G pr
Researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center (SFVAMC) have taken the first major step toward isolating adult stem cells from mouse skin, having developed a test that confirms the presence and number of stem cells in a given amount of tissue. Until now, such a technique has only existed for isolating adult stem cells found in blood.
“This assay has opened up a whole new avenue of research,” said Ruby Ghadially, MD, SFVAMC staff physician and UCSF associate professor of dermatology. “If
Research carried out in the United States has raised the hope that one day there could be a vaccine against pancreatic cancer – one of the most difficult cancers to treat successfully.
Dr Robert Maki told ECCO12 – The European Cancer Conference – today (Monday 22 September) that preliminary work with a cancer vaccine created from a heat-shock protein1 taken from the patient’s own tumour had resulted in one patient out of the ten vaccinated still alive and without disease after five years, an
As Hurricane Isabel converges on the US East Coast, a veteran ESA spacecraft has provided meteorologists with crucial insights into the underlying pressure system powering the storm.
An entire flotilla of satellites is being kept busy tracking Hurricane Isabel in visible and infrared light, as well as gathering additional measurements of local sea surface temperature, wind and rainfall levels. ESA spacecraft ERS-2 has made the picture more detailed still by discerning the wind speed and dire
CSIRO has developed an Internet-based simulation tool that predicts the motion of particles inside grinding mills, providing insight into the way mills work and enabling huge energy savings from smarter, more energy efficient design.
webGF-Mill assesses the design and function of the grinding mills used at mines to crush ore.
“Improving mill design is important because of the amount of energy that mills use,” says CSIRO mathematician Dave Morton. “Typically, grinding mills are very
A CSIRO Livestock Industries researcher, Dr Caroline Kerr, will use an award from the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to ascertain whether certain immune system molecules can be used to reduce livestock stress levels.
Dr Kerr is the Australian Wool Innovation winner and one of 18 researchers and innovators to be awarded the 2003 Science and Innovation Award for Young People in Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.
Presented in Canberra by the
Elusive brown dwarfs, the missing link between gas giant planets like Jupiter and small, low-mass stars, have now been “fingerprinted” by UCLA astronomy professor Ian S. McLean and colleagues, using the Keck II Telescope at the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii.
McLean and his research team will publish the most systematic and comprehensive near-infrared spectral analysis of more than 50 brown dwarfs in the Oct. 10 issue of the Astrophysical Journal, the premier journal in astronomy, publi
Roughly the size of a buffalo, a giant rodent that roamed the banks of an ancient Venezuelan river some 8 million years ago, dining on sea grass and dodging crocodiles, was an evolutionary sibling to modern-day guinea pigs.
The largest rodent that ever lived, Phoberomys pattersoni, weighed about 1,545 pounds (700 kilograms) – more than 10 times the size of today’s rodent heavyweight, the 110-pound (50 kilograms) capybara.
“Imagine a weird guinea pig, but huge, with a long tail fo
Piero Anversa, M.D., director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at New York Medical College, has demonstrated again that the heart has its own adult stem cells for regenerating heart muscle tissue following a coronary event. The research paper published in the September 19, 2003, issue of the journal Cell builds upon a study that appeared weeks ago in the September 2 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The Cell study was conducted in Dr. Anversa’s laboratory by a te
Hormones that regulate cardiovascular function have been discovered to influence malaria infection. As a consequence, beta-blockers, which are safe, inexpensive and commonly prescribed drugs used worldwide to treat high blood pressure, are effective against the deadliest and most drug-resistant strain of malaria parasites.
These findings, by Kasturi Haldar, Jon Lomasney, Travis Harrison and colleagues at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, were reported in an article in t
Studies in zebrafish lead to better understanding of blood formation and leukemia development
Researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston have isolated a gene responsible for making blood stem cells. The findings appear in today’s issue of the journal Nature. The gene, called cdx4, is responsible for establishing the location of blood cell formation in the developing embryo. Cdx4 works by altering the expression of HOX genes, which are involved in making the body plan. Surpris
A new, rare fossil of a prehistoric sea creature bearing eyes like “twin towers” sheds light on how it lived more than 395 million years ago, says a University of Alberta researcher.
Dr. Brian Chatterton, one of the world’s leading experts on trilobites and a professor in the U of A’s Faculty of Science, reports on the discovery of the only known complete specimen of a particular trilobite in this week’s edition of the prestigious scientific journal Science.
Trilobi
Danish research published in this week’s issue of THE LANCET provides strong evidence that the shortening of radiotherapy treatment time has definitive benefits for people being treated for head and neck cancer.
There is debate among oncologists about the optimum treatment time for patients given radiotherapy for head and neck cancer. Jens Overgaard from Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark, and colleagues investigated whether the shortening of treatment time by use of six instead of f
The dramatic loss of marine wildlife recorded last year in the Western Baltic Sea between Denmark, Germany and Sweden is largely the result of extreme weather conditions and an increase in man-made nutrients, according to the findings of a report recently released by the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM), to which the European Commission provided significant input. Last autumn, the two organisations joined forces to investigate exceptional oxygen depletion in the Western Baltic that had led to hundreds o
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