A team including researchers at the Total Defense Research Institute, NBC Defense, in Umeå, Sweden, and the Department of Molecular Biology, Umeå University, are publishing in this week’s issue of Science new findings that show that the protein Ymt is of crucial importance for the capacity of the plague bacterium to survive and spread the plague via flea vectors. Professor Åke Forsberg and visiting researcher Dr. Peter Cherepanov are studying the properties that enable the plague bacterium Yersinia
Is it possible to make components out of organic polymers (plastics) whose structure is such that severed nerves can grow right into them and connect with electrodes in a prosthetic hand, for example? This is one of the research fields for Tobias Nyberg at the Section for Biomolecular and Organic Electronics at Linköping University, Sweden.
Part of Tobias Nyberg’s dissertation is based on collaboration with cell biologist Helena Jerregård. Her task is to find ways to get tangled nerves to s
Researchers at the University of Warwick’s Warwick Process Technology Group have devised a process that turns wet waste from sewage farms and paper mills into a source of power.
University of Warwick researcher Dr Ashok Bhattacharya and his team are part of a Europe wide consortium that have cracked the problem of how to extract very pure levels of hydrogen from wet bio-matter, such as sewage or paper mill waste. This very pure hydrogen can then be used in “fuel cells” to power homes, factor
The scientists from I.P. Pavlov Institute of Physiology, Russian Academy of Sciences, have investigated the intellectual abilities of chimpanzees in comparison with the children from a nursery school in Koltushy near St. Petersburg. They asked both to build the pyramids of cubes of different size. The children with the retention of speech development aged from 2 to 7 and two chimpanzees, female (aged 7) and male (aged 11) ones, took part in the experiment. The children and the apes were shown a pyra
An international team of researchers leaded by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona have found experimental evidence that the various manifestations of fear in animals are influenced by a specific place or region within the genome. The results, published in the latest edition of Genome Research, were obtained with rats, but the scientists suspect that this research will facilitate an understanding of genetic characteristics and conditioning factors related to fear in humans.
Demonstrating t
Major new research examining the use of virtual surgery could revolutionise the way surgeons are trained in the future.
Experts use to believe that virtual reality, which allows trainee surgeons to feel and see exactly what they would if they were in the operating theatre, may help improve surgical skills, but it hadn’t been proved – until now.
The innovative research, by world experts from Yale University and Queen’s University Belfast, has shown that surgeons who trained o
Far away among the stars, in the Ara constellation of the southern sky, a small black hole is whirling space around it. If you tried to stay still in its vicinity, you couldn’t. You’d be dragged around at high speed as if you were riding on a giant flywheel.
In reality, gas falling into the black hole is whirled in that way. It radiates energy, in the form of X-rays, more intensely than it would do if space were still by tapping into the black hole’s internal energy stream.
Research, published in the online journal, BMC Biotechnology shows how researchers in Italy have used genetically modified eggplants made by the introduction of a gene that increases the level of the plant hormone indole acetic acid (IAA) to produce seedless fruits. Furthermore, these genetically modified eggplants are 30-35% more productive than conventional varieties in both greenhouse and field trials.
The public have a special liking for seedless fruits for two reasons, firstly seeds a
Cosmologists claim Universe has been forming and reforming for eternity.
The Universe was not born in one Big Bang, it has been going through cycles of creation and annihilation for eternity, according to a controversial new mathematical model 1 .
It’s a compelling claim. The new cyclic model removes a major stumbling block common to existing theories of the Universe – namely, that physics can’t explain what came before the Big Bang.
Becaus
Biotech human breast milk growing but not bottled.
Genetically modified (GM) rice carrying a protein from human breast milk could be used to enhance infant formula, researchers hope. But at present, the protein would not gain approval for use in the United States.
Nutritionists agree that breast milk is best for a baby; infant formula is not as nourishing as the real thing. So for mothers unable to breast-feed, the biotech industry is engineering crops or animals to make huma
Findings from the Anthrax Vaccine Expert Committee (AVEC) do not suggest a high frequency of medically important adverse events associated with anthrax vaccination
Between March 1998 and March 2002 525,000 US military personnel were vaccinated against anthrax. In the case of an outbreak, this vaccine could be extended to civilians, as occurred in December 2001. The Anthrax Vaccine Expert Committee (AVEC), a civilian panel of physicians and scientists set up to monitor the safety of vaccinati
“Formulas from 1948 were being used.”
Monthly evaporation models, important for water management, can be improved by studying the dispersion of rain for each month. This is one of the conclusions in the research project of Marieke de Groen. She will defend her thesis on Monday the 29th of April. De Groen: “The subject was neglected for a long time. The monthly models contained formulas from 1948.”
Our main source of food – the agriculture sector – is very dependant on the we
Leading international medical experts have visited the University of Kent at Canterbury (UKC) to make final preparations for transferring a revolutionary technology of diagnostic eye examination equipment to Asahikawa Medical College in Japan.
Susumu Oshima and Toshio Murata from Nidek Japan (Nidek is the largest ophthalmic instrument company in Japan) spent four days at UKC with Professor David Jackson, Dr Adrian Podoleanu and Dr John Rogers who have achieved international reputation for
Limp lettuce and wilting roses could be a thing of the past, following the identification of a key plant gene by University scientists. The discovery could also improve food shelf life, and help speed up reforestation programmes. Plant scientists Professor Meyer and Dr Elena Zubko have identified the plant gene which produces a specific type of hormones (cytokinins) to counteract ageing, and control shoot production. By enhancing the gene to overproduce cytokinins, they saw dramatic results: a cut pl
Even a conventional mobile phone user demands more functions and better performance of his mobile phone in the smallest possible space. The mobile phone should also be easy to use, reliable and inexpensive. In order to meet these demands, more data and functions than before must be packed into the circuit boards of mobile phones in the future.
The researchers at the Helsinki University of Technology have met this challenge by developing a new type of production method for electronics, a so-c
Fossil find hints at life of one of our earliest mammalian forebears.
A mouse-sized fossil from 125 million years ago is the earliest known member of the mammal group that includes humans, say researchers.
The animal is a primitive example of today’s dominant mammals. “It’s at the very root of this diverse and incredibly important group,” says palaeontologist Zhe-Xi Luo of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh 1 .
The mammal, Eomaia sc
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