While many scientists and policy makers have focused only on how heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide are altering our global climate, a new NASA-funded study points to the importance of also including human-caused land-use changes as a major factor contributing to climate change.
Land surface changes, like urban sprawl, deforestation and reforestation, and agricultural and irrigation practices strongly affect regional surface temperatures, precipitation and larger-scale atmospheric cir
Less than 10% of the human genome contains coded information in the form of genes. The 30,000-40,000 genes in the genome are found grouped in discrete regions of the chromosomes. Chemical agents and radiation habitually cause a large variety of injuries to the DNA which interferes in many cell processes, like transcription and replication, and this can cause a loss of control of cell division and the appearance of tumours. In order to avoid this, the human genome contains more than 130 DNA repair gen
Pairing a real dancer with an animated dance partner is nothing new – it’s a technique used in any number of movies or television shows. But collaborating artists and engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are putting a new spin on the idea.
Working with engineers in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at Illinois, visiting Beckman scholar Yu Hasegawa-Johnson is the visionary behind a real-time, high-tech pas de deux by dancers located thousands of
Speaking at BioArrays Europe (Cambridge, UK, 30 Sept-1 Oct), Dr Tony Smith, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Solexa, presented data on the progress of the Company`s proprietary Single Molecule Array™ technology for human genetic variation applications, highlighting significant progress in the massively parallel detection of single molecules using fluorescence.
Solexa’s Single Molecule Array technology is being applied to the measurement of individual genetic variation to develop a method f
3D Molecular Sciences presented a poster providing new assay data on the Company’s multiplexing enabling platform technology for molecular medicine at the BioArray Europe conference, taking place in Cambridge, UK, on 1 October 2002. The new patented assay system consists of microfabricated encoded particles of a variety of designs, attachment chemistries and a choice of readers to interpret the results.
The poster presentation, entitled Several Assay Systems Presented Using a New Patented 3
The c-myc gene is commonly activated in a variety of human tumors. As a new report in the October 1 issue of Genes & Development shows, scientists are gaining a better understanding as to why.
Dr. John Cleveland and colleagues at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have discovered that c-Myc is essential for tumor development, as it regulates factors necessary for the growth of blood vessels into tumors – lending a new potential target to anti-angiogenic cancer therapies.
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Two independent research groups, led by Drs. Haruhiko Siomi (Institute for Genome Research, University of Tokushima, Japan) and Gregory Hannon (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, USA) have discovered that the Drosophila version of the human fragile X mental retardation protein associates with components of the RNAi pathway, suggesting that the molecular mechanism underlying fragile X syndrome may involve an RNAi-related process.
“It has been our feeling since we became involved in the field sev
A novel form of vitamin D has been shown to grow bone in the lab and in experimental animals, a result that holds promise for the estimated 44 million Americans, mostly post-menopausal women, who suffer from or are at risk for the bone-wasting disease osteoporosis.
The research, conducted by a team of scientists led by biochemist Hector F. DeLuca at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was reported this week (Sept. 30) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a leading
Scientists from NASA and the Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have confirmed the ozone hole over the Antarctic this September is not only much smaller than it was in 2000 and 2001, but has split into two separate “holes.”
The researchers stressed the smaller hole is due to this year’s peculiar stratospheric weather patterns and that a single year’s unusual pattern does not make a long-term trend. Moreover, they said, the data are not conclusive t
For the first time, scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have discovered similar gene activity profiles between a herpes virus that affects rhesus macaque monkeys and a human herpes virus linked to Kaposi’s sarcoma. This cancer is endemic among Mediterranean and sub-Sahara African populations. In the last 20 years, however, the disease has occurred most frequently in people with AIDS.
The study team, led by Dr. Blossom Damania, assistant professor of microbiolo
Harmful algal blooms, or HABs, can harm fish, birds and even people who are exposed to the toxic algae. HABs come in many forms, including a red tide that regularly affects Florida waters, a brown tide organism, and Pfiestera piscicida, an algae associated with fish kills. Scientists are unsure of exactly what causes the blooms, but a Woods Hole Sea Grant research team may have come up with a way to treat the increasingly common occurrences. Don Anderson and Mario Sengco are testing the use of clay t
Using genetically altered mice, Yale researchers have generated a clearer picture of the origins of B cells and their involvement in autoimmune diseases such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes.
Published in the September 20 issue of Science, the study, led by Mark Shlomchik, M.D., associate professor of laboratory medicine at Yale School of Medicine, looked at B cells’ reactions to its own toxins, known as antigens. B lymphocyte cells normally produce antibodies to viruses and
New research shows that a synthetic antioxidant can reduce brain damage by more than 40 percent in an animal model of stroke when given seven and a half hours after the stroke begins. Researchers at National Jewish Medical and Research Center and Duke University Medical Center will report their findings in the October issue of the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine.
“Because the onset of a stroke can be difficult to detect, many patients do not get treatment for several hours,” said
Researchers from Oxford University’s Computing Laboratory have developed techniques to spot malicious attacks on computer networks, that include the use of Inductive Logic Programming (ILP) techniques to automatically determine the semantics of novel attack strategies.
Intrusions often take place where there are vulnerabilities within computer systems. For example, one of the most common of these is the buffer overflow, where an attacker sends overly long transactions to a server. The aim i
There’s more to the saying “men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses” than meets the eye. Indeed, whether you’re a man or a woman, wearing contact lenses on a night out could increase your chances of ‘pulling’ by as much as four times. This is one of the conclusions of a study carried out by University of Warwick psychology researcher Dr June McNicholas.
“People who need eyesight correction often wonder if there’s any truth in the saying about wearing glasses, so we put it to the te
Regular use of inhaled steroids cuts hospital admissions for severe asthma by almost a third, reveals research in Thorax.
Most previous research has looked at the short-term effects of inhalers to prevent asthma attacks, but this Canadian study analysed data for asthma patients over a period of 22 years.
The study included all asthma patients aged 5 to 44 years of age between 1975 and 1991, who were part of the health insurance scheme provided for all residents in the province of Sa
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