An international team of scientists has completed the first comprehensive study of the ocean storage of carbon dioxide derived from human activity, called anthropogenic CO2, based on a decade-long survey of global ocean carbon distributions in the 1990s.

The findings, along with those detailed in a companion paper on the impacts of anthropogenic CO2 on the chemistry of the oceans and the potential response of marine animals and plants to changes in CO2 levels, will be published in the July

An innovative study at Robarts Research Institute provides early evidence that hospital MRI scanners can be used to detect distinct brain cell abnormalities that are predictors of multiple sclerosis (MS).

In a preclinical study in rats with a disease similar to the human form, Robarts scientist Dr. Paula Foster used an injection of nano-particles of iron oxide, which exhibit magnetic qualities and can be detected by an MRI scanner.

During the acute inflammatory phase of the disease,

The University of Utah’s John A. Moran Eye Center has received a $100,000 grant from the Stephen A. and Elaine Wynn Charitable Foundation to fund continued research into retinal cell transplantation. The research is expected to help set the stage for human clinical trials of treatments for a blinding eye disease known as Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP).

The funding will support the work of Raymond D. Lund, Ph.D., the Calvin S. and Janeal N. Hatch Presidential Endowed Chair and Professor of Opht

The idea that a woman’s emotional state during pregnancy affects her unborn child has persisted for centuries and has, in recent years, been supported by science. Called the “fetal programming hypothesis,” it theorizes that certain disturbing factors occurring during certain sensitive periods of development in utero can “program” set points in a variety of biological systems in the unborn child. This, then, affects the ability of those biological systems to change later in life, resulting in difficu

A newly published study by a University of Wisconsin research team points the way to solving two of life’s seemingly eternal but unrelated mysteries: how birds that migrate thousands of miles every year accomplish the feat on very little sleep and what that ability means for humans who are seriously sleep-deprived or face significant sleep problems.

The study, published online in the July 13 issue of PloS (Public Library of Science) Biology, found that a group of sparrows studied in the l

Women with breast cancer who receive unwanted support have more trouble adjusting to the disease than those who receive no support at all, a new study suggests.

Researchers Julie S. Reynolds and Nancy A. Perrin of the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research and Oregon Health & Science University in Portland report in the journal Health Psychology that the negative effect of unwanted support was more substantial to the women’s psychosocial adjustment to their illness than was the positiv

In a study of 33 HIV+ couples who engaged in frequent, unprotected sex, Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology researchers found no evidence of superinfection, the sequential acquisition of multiple HIV variants.

HIV is a highly mutable virus encompassing two quite different types around the world, HIV-1 and HIV-2. Within those types there are variations known as “subclades” that are typically subdivided further into genetically differentiated strains. The epidemic in the U.S. cons

Carnivores around the world are more at risk of extinction due to their own intrinsic biological attributes than from an increasing human population with whom they share their space, say scientists in a study published this week. Researchers looking at all 280 carnivore species around the world estimated the risk of their extinction by 2030 based on a variety of different threats.

They found that while a high human population density is associated with a high extinction risk, its importanc

Science teachers will have free access to a comprehensive selection of exciting multimedia resources to help them teach and inspire pupils studying science at Key Stage 3 with a new interactive CD-rom. The material has been selected and edited in a project involving top UK scientists, teachers and education consultants.

Seeingscience with CCLRC has been produced by CCLRC, a UK government-funded research council which operates the Daresbury and Rutherford Appleton Laboratories. It provides l

Don’t categorically reject hormone replacement therapy (HRT) just yet: When women begin HRT before age 60, their risk of death is 39 percent less than women not on hormones, according to a new survey.

The findings are based on a Cornell University-Stanford University meta-analysis (a study of other previously published studies), which pooled the results of 30 clinical trials of HRT with almost 27,000 women.

“The results of our analysis indicate that the benefits of HRT outwe

A new study suggests household residents don’t always agree on the extent of smoking restrictions in their home, and disagreement is more likely to happen if at least one of the residents is a smoker.

Residents provided conflicting accounts of strict home smoking bans in 12 percent of the households surveyed, according to Elizabeth Mumford, Ph.D., and colleagues at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation.

The report in the August issue of the American Journal of Preventive

Study suggests women with vulvodynia process pain differently

Women who experience pain in the genital area have often been told it’s all in their head. New research shows it may well be in the shins, arms and thumbs. Women with a condition called vulvodynia process pain differently, and these women are more sensitive to pain at other points in their body, researchers at the University of Michigan Health System found. Results of their study appear in the July issue of the journ

About 40 percent of Los Angeles County residents say they get no more than 10 minutes of continuous physical activity each week, according to a new report.

Women interviewed for the study were almost twice as likely as men to be physically inactive, say Antronette Yancey, M.D., M.P.H., of the UCLA School of Public Health and colleagues. Older and less educated residents, along with those born outside the United States, were also apt to be sedentary.

The findings appear in the Aug

A new study finds increasing evidence a virus may play a role in breast cancer. The study, published July 12, 2004 in the online edition of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, finds nearly three-quarters of a small sample of Tunisian breast cancer patients showed evidence of a virus similar to one known to cause breast cancer in mice, twice the rate seen in women in the United States. A free abstract of the study will be available via Wiley InterScience.

Viruses

Scientists studying mice have identified a possible strategy for slowing a rare, fatal childhood neurodegenerative disease known as Niemann-Pick type C, in which brain cells accumulate fat and die. The finding could also have implications for treating other neurodegenerative disease, they say.

In their study, published in the July issue of Nature Medicine, the team discovered that the synthesis of neurosteroid hormones in the brain — a process known as neurosteroidogenesis — is severely d

Researchers at The Wistar Institute and the University of Pennsylvania report success in monkeys of an innovative triple-vaccine strategy aimed at creating an effective anti-HIV vaccine regimen. In a test of the new approach, the scientists sought to maximize the immune response to a truncated HIV gene called Gag and succeeded in dramatically stimulating the production of CD8+ T cells responsive to Gag. Many scientists believe that CD8+ T cells will be an important key to creating an effective HIV