An international collaboration between medical researchers may have identified how meningitis causing bacteria cross from the blood into the brain, paving the way for new strategies to prevent this fatal disease, the Society for General Microbiology’s Spring Meeting in Edinburgh heard today, Tuesday 8 April 2003.
“Almost every known bacteria which attacks people could potentially cause meningitis,” says Professor Kwang Sik Kim of John Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA who worked on this issue fo
An international team of astronomers has discovered that “dark matter”, the mysterious material that seems to make up most of the mass of galaxies, is not as all-pervasive as previously believed. Surprising new results from studies of several elliptical galaxies show they are not surrounded by halos of dark matter as was expected. The findings will be presented at the UK/Ireland National Astronomy Meeting in Dublin on Wednesday April 9th by Dr Aaron Romanowsky of the University of Nottingham.
Spinning black holes could be responsible for at least some of the immensely powerful gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) astronomers observe coming from distant galaxies. On Tuesday 8 April, Sheila McBreen of University College, Dublin, will tell the UK/Ireland National Astronomy Meeting in Dublin that her analysis of the way gamma-rays were emitted over the course of outbursts from a large sample of GRBs has revealed particular signatures, most likely to be those of a rotating black hole either being “spun up”
Material has been discovered moving at nearly 10% the speed of light away from the centre of the nearby quasar PDS456 – the most powerful object in the local universe. Like all quasars, PDS456 is thought to be powered by matter converting into energy when material is swallowed by a supermassive black hole. New observations show that its energy output is so large that it is “choking on its food” and radiation is literally blowing the top off the inner region of the disc of in-falling material that su
Implications for treatment, defense against chemical weapons
A study led by scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill offers the first molecular explanation of how the body metabolizes and detoxifies cocaine and heroin. “We show for the first time how humans initiate the breakdown and clearance of these dangerous narcotics,” said Dr. Matthew R. Redinbo, assistant professor in the department of chemistry, and in the School of Medicine’s department of biochemist
The desire for healthy-looking skin has existed throughout the centuries and has often led humanity to flowers and other plants in search of assistance. COSMACTIVE treads the same path, but uses the latest in biotechnology to identify and extract the active ingredients from a wide range of plants.
Under the umbrella of the EUREKA project COSMACTIVE, the French research company Greentech has developed a new way of identifying and selecting active ingredients that gives it, and its Spanish par
VTT’s new device promotes clean combustion technology with high plant efficiency
VTT, Technical Research Centre of Finland, offers new opportunities to improve power plant efficiency with its globally unique research equipment. Most power plant types, independent of their fuel, use steam to produce energy. The first of its kind, VTT’s equipment now enables steam to be brought to its supercritical state under research conditions. In this state, the steam may reach a temperatu
The newly discovered disease, Sudden Oak Death (SOD), is quickly gaining a reputation, and it’s not a good one. SOD is tenacious and lethal, using as many as 26 different plants as hosts and spreading in ways scientists don’t completely understand. Now, recent research suggests that SOD is capable of using an even greater number of host plants than previously thought. While this is not necessarily good news, it does help shed light on why SOD has been so quick to spread.
“SOD is d
Since Charles Darwin heralded evolution more than 150 years ago, scientists have sought to better understand when and how the vast variety of plants today diverged from common ancestors.
A new University of Georgia study, just published in Nature, demonstrates key events in plant evolution. It allows scientists to infer what the gene order may have looked like in a common ancestor of higher plants. And it shows one way plants may have differentiated from their ancestors and each other.
Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have devised an advanced technique that uses mass spectrometry to identify specific proteins that are over-expressed in cancer cells, blood, urine, or any substance that contains proteins.
Using this new technique, they have already identified two proteins – MIF and CyP-A — whose levels are elevated in lung cancer cells but not in normal cells, said Edward Patz, M.D., professor of radiology and pharmacology and cancer biology at Duke.
Building on their 2001 discovery of a cellular doorway used by anthrax toxin to enter cells, University of Wisconsin Medical School researchers have found a second anthrax toxin doorway, or receptor. The finding could offer new clues to preventing the toxin’s entrance into cells.
The researchers also have found that when they isolated a specific segment of the receptor in the laboratory, they could use it as a decoy to lure anthrax toxin away from the real cell receptors, preventing much o
The unpleasant and painful sores, and infection of newborn babies caused by the genital herpes virus could soon be a thing of the past according to Dr Julian Hickling, who is presenting results from Xenova Research Ltd today, Tuesday 8 April 2003, to the Society for General Microbiology’s Spring Meeting in Edinburgh.
“The challenge is trying to achieve a good balance between safety and a vaccine that really works,” says Dr Hickling, Research Director, Biologics of pharmaceutical company Xeno
A team of astronomers based in the UK and the US has for the first time measured the redshifts of a significant sample of puzzling “submillimetre galaxies”, discovered by some members of the team in 1997. Dr Ian Smail of the University of Durham will tell the UK/Ireland National Astronomy Meeting that these are remote galaxies with high redshifts, and are likely to contain huge numbers of young stars heavily enshrouded by dust. Because of the time it takes light to travel, they are seen how they were
Has an increasing trend in the Sun’s brightness contributed to global warming over the last few decades? One study published recently says it has but Judith Lean of the US Naval Research Laboratory will tell a joint session of the UK/Ireland National Astronomy Meeting and Solar Physics Meeting in Dublin that a different study has come to the opposite conclusion when she tackles the controversial topic of the relationship between our climate and the Sun on Tuesday 8 April.
Earth’s
Researchers in Oxford University’s Department of Human Anatomy have identified a factor involved in the regeneration of neurons in the central nervous system. The discovery and use of this factor could provide the basis for a reparative treatment for both brain and spinal cord injuries.
Unlike lower vertebrates, mammals have lost the ability to repair damage to the brain and spinal cord. Since peripheral nerves are capable of repair, this is thought to be not so much an intrinsic inability o
Scientists from the University of Minnesota demonstrated yields of corn and soybeans were only minimally reduced when organic production practices were utilized as compared with conventional production practices. After factoring in production costs, net returns between the two production strategies were equivalent.
More than 80% of corn and soybeans produced in the United States is grown in the Midwest, the vast majority with conventional production practices in a corn-soybean rotation requ
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