Every year, malaria kills as many as 2.5 million people. Ninety percent of these deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, and most are children. While four species of the single-celled organism Plasmodium cause malaria, Plasmodium falciparum is the deadliest. Harbored in mosquito saliva, the parasite infects its human host as the mosquito feeds on the victim’s blood. Efforts to control the disease have taken on an increased sense of urgency, as more P. falciparum strains show resistance to anti-malar
They might not normally merit a second glance, but those everyday objects around the house are constantly undergoing intense scrutiny, categorization and classification by babies trying to make sense of a world only months new to them.
There is a lot going on in the heads of babies – probably more than most people think, says Texas A&M University psychologist Teresa Wilcox, who studies the way babies think about and interact with their physical world. She’s examining how and when babies be
Glaciers, it turns out, aren’t so different from people – they can gain weight in their bottoms and be less active, scientists have discovered.
Glaciers, the heavyweights of landscape erosion, grow not just from snow accumulating on their surfaces but also from beneath by freezing of meltwater which can affect the rate at which they can erode, according to a team of scientists, including one from Michigan State University.
Their discovery, reported in a cover story in the Aug
Researchers use new synthetic hydro-gel
Carnegie Mellon University’s Jeffrey Hollinger and his research team will receive $1.12 million over the next four years from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop a new therapy for regenerating bone.
Bone, often called the structural steel and reinforced concrete of the human body, supports the body the way a steel framework supports a skyscraper, and it protects its vital organs the way a cast-concrete roof protects
Scientists from the University of Strathclyde, collaborating with an international team from Imperial College, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory(RAL), ITU (Karlsruhe) and the University of Jena, have successfully turned the radioactive isotope Iodine-129, a major waste product in the nuclear power industry, into the more friendly isotope Iodine-128 using laboratory lasers. This is the first time an isotope has been transmuted. They announced their discovery today in The Institute of Physics journal Jour
Local elites in post-communist accession countries have a limited knowledge of the EU and were not engaged in the accession process, according to new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
“Local officials, business people, the media and the cultural intelligentsia feel that the accession process is relevant only to national decision-makers and has little to do with them,” says Dr. Jim Hughes of London School of Economics, who led the project, which is part of the exte
Researchers have discovered that total bromine in the lower atmosphere has been decreasing since 1998 and is now more than five percent below the peak reached that year. Bromine is one of the most active destroyers of the stratospheric ozone layer, which forms an invisible shield around the Earth, protecting it from the biologically damaging ultraviolet rays of the Sun.
Stephen A. Montzka and colleagues from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Monitoring and D
In an important new study directly linking climatic warming with the survival of lake organisms, researchers have found multiple lines of evidence showing that increasing air and water temperatures and related factors are shrinking fish and algae populations in a major lake. The lake holds 18 percent of the world’s liquid freshwater and is a critical food source in East Africa.
Reporting in the August 14, 2003, issue of the journal Nature, Catherine O’Reilly of Vassar College, Andrew Cohe
The world’s smallest photosynthetic organisms, microbes that can turn sunlight and carbon dioxide into living biomass, will be in the limelight next week. Three international teams of scientists, two funded in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF), will announce the genetic blueprints for four closely related forms of these organisms, which dominate the phytoplankton, the tiny floating plants of the oceans. The work will be reported in the August 13 online issues of Nature and t
Recent drought conditions in the North Pacific Ocean near Hawaii have caused a decrease in the strength of the carbon dioxide sink, according to a study published this week in the journal Nature. A team funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and led by scientists Dave Karl and Roger Lukas of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) at the University of Hawaii used 15 years of time-series measurements to compare the precipitation, salinity and carbon dioxide (CO2) concentr
A paper in Nature today (14 August) reveals that certain ocean viruses invade the cells of cyanobacteria (known as blue-green algae) and use the energy the cells produce through photosynthesis for their own purposes.
Researchers at the University of Warwick, led by Professor Nick Mann, have shown that when the viruses infect the bacteria they inject their genetic material into their host, a transfer that may be temporarily advantageous to the host.
Part of the injected DNA codes fo
ESA’s Mars Express is due to arrive at Mars in December 2003, and its Beagle 2 lander will be making a touchdown in the middle of the Martian winter. Will it see a ’’white Christmas’’ on the Red Planet? Also, if humans one day go to Mars, would they need to take a sunscreen?
Over its four-year lifetime, Mars Express will be returning data to refine the latest computer models of the Martian climate. It will be closely watching the clouds, fog, dust devils, and storms,
The year 2040 could see many people working from home several days a week staying in touch with colleagues through videophone and internet connections. When planning a holiday, people will be limited to a certain number of air miles per year, although additional air miles may be purchased from others at auctions. This will reflect the true environmental cost of air travel.
This is one possible vision of people who participated in research at the University of Surrey’s Psychology Department,
New research into jet printing on textiles could lead to a faster, cheaper alternative to conventional ways of dyeing fabrics. Jet printing could also deliver valuable design benefits, such as a wider choice of colours and avoidance of the need to repeat patterns in a design.
The research is being carried out at Leeds University, with funding from the Swindon-based Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Involving a number of industrial partners, the initiative is also bringing t
Despite fat in meat being frequently associated with negative connotations for the consumer, it is an indispensable component in order to obtain quality meat. To better understand the metabolism of the fat in calf meat and to enable its possible modulation in future, Martín Alzón Aldave has presented his PhD thesis on the Development and metabolism of veal fat tissue in seven Spanish autochthonous breeds of meat-yielding calves.
Seven autochthonous breeds
Martín Alzón had tw
Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death in the world today. With 4.9 million tobacco-related deaths per year, no other consumer product is as dangerous, or kills as many people, as tobacco. But with the adoption of a new, ground-breaking international treaty, the scene is now set to protect billions of people from the devastating impact of tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke.
May 21st 2003 was a historic day for global public health. At the 56th World Heal
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