As health agencies around the world race to pinpoint the cause of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), researchers are reporting success in developing a new theoretical model that shows how the pressure exerted by the immune response of an infected population can drive evolution of influenza virus.
The model does not aim to predict the emergence of new strains of influenza, but it does suggest that a short-lived general immunity to the virus might affect the virus’s evolution. If i
Scientists and engineers trying to share materials property data over the Internet will have an easier time now thanks to a new computer language called MatML–Materials Markup Language–developed by an international group of researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), industry, government laboratories, universities, standards organizations and professional societies. MatML provides a standard format for managing and exchanging materials property data on the World Wide
Scientists at Tularik Inc. (NASDAQ: TLRK) and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have discovered a new gene that is expressed at abnormally high levels in nearly 50% of the breast cancer specimens they examined, and is similarly overexpressed in a large proportion of lung cancers (35%).
The discovery of the gene, called KCNK9, is significant for several reasons:
1) KCNK9 reveals a previously unrecognized mechanism for oncogene action (namely, potassium channels).
2) KCNK9 is
Drivers talking on cell phones are nearly twice as likely as other drivers involved in crashes to have rear-end collisions, according to a new University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study. Crashes involving cell phone use, however, are less likely to result in fatalities or serious injuries than crashes not involving the devices.
Almost 60 percent of licensed N.C. drivers have used a cell phone while behind the wheel, investigators from the UNC Highway Safety Research Center (HSRC) fo
The world’s biggest fungus, discovered in Oregon’s Blue Mountains in 2001, is challenging traditional notions of what constitutes an individual. The underground fungus–estimated to be between 2000 and 8500 years old–is also deepening our understanding of the ecosystem, with possible implications for the management of Canadian forests, according to a paper by the discoverers (B.A. Ferguson, T.A. Dreisbach, C.G. Parks, G.M. Filip, and C.L. Schmitt) published March 17 on the Web site of the
Finding how E1 enzyme juggles three jobs should lead to critical insights into the control of cellular functions at the heart of health and disease
Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have discovered how a single enzyme called E1 performs a rapid-fire, three-part chemical makeover of a protein that helps control some of the most fundamental biochemical processes of the human cell. The enzyme uses two different parts of its own structure to juggle four different mo
Dramatic images reveal unique star explosion
In the early months of 2002, astronomers scanning the sky saw something highly unusual – and they still don’t know exactly what it is. A star suddenly flashed to 600,000 times its previous brightness. For a brief time, it was the brightest star in the galaxy.
As the light from the outburst spread into space, it reflected from surrounding rings of dust to reveal a spectacular, multicolored bull’s eye that is now 3 light
The work of a Binghamton chemistry professor is altering conventional wisdom about the interactions of the anticancer drug Taxol ® and could lead to the development of even more effective, next-generation pharmaceuticals.
With $406,835 funding from the National Institute of Health, Susan Bane and her Binghamton research team are working in collaboration with David Kingston of Virginia Polytechnic Institute to learn more about the protein “tubulin.”
“Tubulin is a target for a number
Scientists from the John Innes Centre (JIC), Norwich (1) have today reported that highly toxic compounds, called free radicals, are essential to plant growth. The researchers had found that the controlled production of free radicals is an essential first step in switching on the expansion of cells that underlies the growth of plant shoots, roots, leaves and buds. A phenomenon that is especially evident in the spring. The research is reported in the international scientific journal Nature.
“T
Early on the morning of 30 June 1908, the vast forest of western Siberia was illuminated by a strange apparition: an alien object streaking across the cloudless sky. White hot from its headlong plunge into the Earth’s atmosphere, the intruder exploded about 8 km above the ground, flattening trees over an area of 2000 square kilometres.
Despite the huge detonation, equivalent to a 10 megaton nuclear warhead (about 500 times the energy of the Hiroshima atomic bomb), there were few if any casu
In January 2002, a moderately dim star in the constellation Monoceros, the Unicorn, suddenly became 600 000 times more luminous than our Sun. This made it temporarily the brightest star in our Milky Way. The light from this eruption created a unique phenomenon known as a ’light echo’ when it reflected off dust shells around the star.
The brightness of V838 Monocerotis, as astronomers call the star, has long since returned to normal levels. Observations by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space
How nature tries to compensate for the vulnerability of male babies
New research from Italy reveals that mother nature tries very hard to compensate for the fact that male foetuses and newborns are more fragile than females by allowing significantly more boys to be conceived at a time of year when conditions for pregnancy and birth are optimal.
Evidence that males are more fragile than females and that fewer males are conceived in sub-optimal conditions is not new. What is new in
A pulsed electric arc could provide an alternative to chlorination and other chemical methods of disinfecting water, according to researchers from the University of Poitiers, France, speaking to the Institute of Physics’ Congress on March 27 at Heriot-Watt University.
Water treatment is usually carried out using chlorine-containing disinfecting agents but these produce by-products that are coming under increasing scrutiny by the European Community. Chemical agents to destroy pollutants
Intelligent environment learns and is technically interactive
VTT, Technical Research Centre of Finland, has developed technology which operates through people’s gestures. The new concept is currently being introduced for research purposes at Italdesign-Giugiaro S. p.a. the Italian car design firm. The same technology is used in wireless terminal equipment user interface research in the Netherlands at the Philips research centre HomeLab.
This VTT technology known as gesture inter
Supermassive black holes, notorious for ripping apart and swallowing stars, might also help seed interstellar space with the elements necessary for life, such as hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and iron, scientists say.
Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton satellite, scientists at Penn State University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found evidence of high-speed winds blowing away copious amounts of gas from the cores of two quasar galaxies, which are
A bacterium’s ability to change its hairstyle may help in the effort to clean contaminated groundwater for drinking, according to Penn State researchers.
People are continually moving into places that are hot, sunny and arid where drinking water is in short supply, says R. Kramer Campen, Penn State graduate student in geosciences. “The imperative to find ways to clean groundwater is paramount,” he told attendees today (March 25) at the 225th American Chemical Society national meeting i
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