Researchers at Stanford University Medical Center have found that selective COX-2 inhibitors – a class of medications widely prescribed for painful inflammatory conditions such as osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis – interfere with the healing process after a bone fracture or cementless joint implant surgery.Their findings, published in the November issue of the Journal of Orthopaedic Research, suggest that patients who regularly take COX-2 inhibitors should switch to a different medication, suc
A new form of nanotechnology developed at Stanford University may lead to a better understanding of the life and death of human cells.
Writing in the Nov. 18 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Stanford researchers described how newly created circles of synthetic DNA – called “nanocircles” – could help researchers learn more about the aging process in cells.
“In the long run, we have this dream of making laboratory cells live longer,” said Eric Kool, a pr
A new imaging method successfully identifies miniscule, young blood vessels that form during the development of plaques, according to a study in rabbits led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. These plaques are akin to atherosclerosis in humans, the primary cause of heart attack and stroke.
“We’ve developed a way to take non-invasive images of very early plaques, before they’re detectable by any other means,” says Samuel A. Wickline, M.D., professor of medici
Research by US scientists has produced a novel finding about the effect on cancer of an important DNA repair gene and, as a result, identified the first clinically useful independent prognostic marker for early stage resected patients with non-small cell lung cancer.
Their results should help doctors in the future to determine which of their patients with non small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC)[1] who have undergone surgery with curative intent are likeliest to suffer from recurrences or relapse
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and their collaborators have discovered that some viruses can use the most abundant protein in the cells they are infecting to destroy the cells and allow new viruses to escape to infect others. The findings, described in the November 29, 2002, issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, build upon earlier Brookhaven research on how virus particles become infectious (see related story) and may lead to the design of m
Thousands in southern Asia could be drinking arsenic-contaminated water from wells that are falsely labeled safe, while precious good water sits untapped in wells that are wrongly marked unsafe — a dire disparity for countries where water can be more valuable than gold.
A new study of wells in Bangladesh and West Bengal, India, suggests the arsenic test kits used by field workers are frequently inaccurate, producing scores of incorrectly labeled wells. The findings were published this month
A new array of ocean robots has begun working deep in the Indian Ocean to help scientists understand Australia’s changing climate.
“This is a key region for the global climate system and installation of the robots will provide our best coverage to begin to understand how the Indian Ocean affects our climate,” says CSIRO’s Dr Gary Meyers.
Cycling between the surface and a depth of two kilometres every 10 days, the ocean robots are sampling conditions in a region thought to
NSF awards grants to discover the relationships of 1.75 million species One of the most profound ideas to emerge in modern science is Charles Darwin’s concept that all of life, from the smallest microorganism to the largest vertebrate, is connected through genetic relatedness in a vast genealogy. This “Tree of Life” summarizes all we know about biological diversity and underpins much of modern biology, yet many of its branches remain poorly known and unresolved. To help
Two specific genes involved in cholesterol transport are required for the most common way excess cholesterol is expelled from our bodies, according to scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.
The genes, the researchers report, are essential for efficient secretion of cholesterol into the bile, which is the major route that cholesterol exits the body. The discovery sheds new light on potential therapies that could play an important role in reducing high cholesterol, a ma
Each spring, amid the decaying rubble of dead prairie plants, emerging male gall wasps find mates by calling upon the chemistry prowess of their predecessors, entomologists scouring Central Illinois have discovered.
In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they report that as adult gall wasps (Antistrophus rufus) feed in warm weather, they change the ratio of plant chemicals so that males emerging after the winter season can recognize when they are on the right stems at the r
When they make their first public demonstration of tele-immersion at this week’s Super Computing 2002 conference in Baltimore, computer scientists will also attain another first: a “network computer” that processes data at a location far removed from either input or output.
While the tele-immersion system will gather and display information in side-by-side booths at the Baltimore Convention Center, actual data processing will occur some 250 miles away at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing C
Researchers in the Materials Sciences Division (MSD) of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, working with crystal-growing teams at Cornell University and Japan’s Ritsumeikan University, have learned that the band gap of the semiconductor indium nitride is not 2 electron volts (2 eV) as previously thought, but instead is a much lower 0.7 eV.
The serendipitous discovery means that a single system of alloys incorporating indium, gallium, and nitrogen can convert virtually the full spectru
UCSF-led scientists have identified the first “master” molecule in the cell nucleus that controls the action of hundreds of different genes at once through its action on enzymes. The broad-acting molecule affects enzymes that restructure chromosomes, exposing genes to proteins that can then trigger key gene processes, including the start of protein production and copying and repairing of genes.
The molecule’s broad effect on a number of genes may allow organisms – including humans — to
The future of nanoelectronics looks promising. Built with nanotubes and various self-assembling molecular structures, this technology may revolutionize the electronic world by replacing the silicon transistor in approximately ten years.
Chemically synthesized nano building blocks are expected to replace semiconductor logic and memory devices and target niche applications over the next decade.
“In 20 to 50 years, we will likely see wide-ranging use of self-assembly,” says Technical I
Most cancer patients are not killed by their primary tumors but succumb to metastatic disease. The most common human cancers–lung, breast, and prostate–frequently spread to bone, causing suffering and morbidity through pain, fractures, and nerve compression syndromes.
Tumor cells enter bones through blood and lymphatic vessels. In order to establish bone metastases, they have to influence bone metabolism. Most breast cancers that spread to bone express high levels of parathyroid hormone r
Staphylococcus aureus is an opportunistic pathogen with a diverse battery of virulence factors, each of which can act alone or in concert in the development of persistent and sometimes lethal infections such as sepsis, toxic shock syndrome, food poisoning and severe skin diseases.
Staphylococcal infections begin when the organism gains access to host tissues or the adjoining blood supply through breaches in the skin. More than 20% of healthy humans are natural carriers of S. aureus, 10%-20%
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