“Aware” home technology has the potential to enhance the safety and well-being of aging Americans, according to an article in the Fall 2005 issue of the Public Policy & Aging Report, a quarterly publication of the National Academy on an Aging Society.

Many older adults live alone, deal with chronic medical conditions, and experience age-related changes in movement control and cognitive abilities. These same individuals largely prefer to maintain an independent lifestyle in their own home

Men with prostate cancer who experience bone loss from cancer treatment could benefit from a weekly oral therapy commonly given to women with osteoporosis, according to a study presented by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Prostate Cancer Symposium, Feb. 24 to 26 at the San Francisco Marriott. The study, abstract number 139, will be featured in a press program at the meeting, 7:30 a.m., Sunday, Feb. 26.

“In previous studies,

Unlovable lamprey holds clues to skeletal evolution

University of Florida scientists have found that people have an ancient skeleton in their closets – a skeleton personified today by a jawless, eel-like fish. It turns out lampreys, long thought to have taken a different evolutionary road than almost all other backboned animals, may not be so different after all, especially in terms of the genetics that govern their skeletal development, according to findings to be published o

Bacteria could help transform a key component of disposable cups, plates and utensils into a useful eco-friendly plastic, significantly reducing the environmental impact of this ubiquitous, but difficult-to-recycle waste stream, according to a study scheduled to appear in the April 1 issue of the American Chemical Society journal, Environmental Science & Technology.

The microbes, a special strain of the soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida, converted polystyrene foam — commonly known as S

Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center say they now have a clearer picture of how an extract from the leaves of the Ginkgo biloba tree reduces the risk of aggressive cancer in animal experiments.

In the January-February issue of the journal Anticancer Research, the investigators reported that treating mice with an extract of leaves of Ginkgo biloba both before and after implanting human breast or brain (glioma) tumors decreased expression of a cell receptor associa

Obtaining serum by cardiac puncture of fetal calves raises ethical concerns; non-animal alternatives scientifically superior

In the March issue of Trends in Biotechnology, scientists and doctors with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) recommend using only animal serum-free media to grow live cells in the laboratory. At issue is the use of fetal calf serum, which is obtained by puncturing the heart of a fetal calf without anesthesia. Recent breakthroughs per

Evolutionary paths to new therapeutic drugs, as well as a wide assortment of other enzyme products, have been created through, of all things, intelligent design. A team of researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley have developed a technique in which the evolution of an important class of proteins is steered towards a desired outcome.

“We’ve taken enzymes that are promiscuous, meaning they have the capa

University of Rochester Medical Center scientists have demonstrated a new technology that accurately and rapidly detects the meat-spoiling and sometimes dangerous E. coli bacteria.

The unique technology uses a protein from the suspect bacteria as part of the sensing system that also includes a silicon chip and a digital camera.

The journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics published an article on the technology in its February issue. Benjamin Miller, Ph.D., an associate pro

Breakthrough will lead to new insights about sense of taste

Researchers from the Monell Chemical Senses Center have succeeded in growing mature taste receptor cells outside the body and for the first time have been able to successfully keep the cells alive for a prolonged period of time. The establishment of a viable long-term model opens a range of new opportunities to increase scientists’ understanding of the sense of taste and how it functions in nutrition, health and disease.

Drawing on lab experiments and computer studies, Johns Hopkins researchers have learned how a common protein delivers its warning message to cells when an infectious agent invades the body. The findings are important because this biological intruder alarm causes the body’s immune system to leap into action to fight the infection. Learning more about how this process works, the researchers said, could lead to better treatments for diseases that occur when the immune system overreacts or pays to

With the spread of the virus across Europe, the Middle East and southeast Asia, the prospect of bird flu reaching Britain is becoming a reality. A leading scientist from the Royal Veterinary College, London, is available to comment on the potential spread of avian flu.

Professor Joe Brownlie, of the Royal Veterinary College, said it is important to house British birds inside where possible.

“To vaccinate the entire domestic stock would be premature because the current vaccine is n

Bacteria are bad. Mothers and doctors, not to mention the cleaning product industry, repeatedly warn of their dangers. But a Stanford University School of Medicine microbiologist is raising the intriguing idea that persistent bacterial and viral infections have benefits.

Stanley Falkow, PhD, the Robert W. and Vivian K. Cahill Professor in Cancer Research, is publishing his thoughts on this topic in an essay in the Feb. 24 issue of the journal Cell, in which he asks, “Is persistent b

Landmark results explain how we process sound, could improve devices from iPods to cochlear implants

Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have discovered that our ears use the most efficient way to process the sounds we hear, from babbling brooks to wailing babies. These results represent a significant advance in our understanding of how sound is encoded for transmission to the brain, according to the authors, whose work is published with an accompanying “News and Views” editori

Engineers have found a way to pinpoint and identify the tiny iron oxide particles associated with Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases in the brain.

The technique is likely to accelerate research on the cause of the diseases and could lead to the first diagnostic procedure for Alzheimer’s in patients while they are alive.

“We’re the first to be able to tell you both the location of the particles and what kind of particles they are,” said Mark Davidson, a Unive

A team of scientists has identified a cellular mechanism that may help explain the puzzle of why people of African descent are more susceptible to tuberculosis infection and why, once infected, they develop more severe states of the disease than whites. The team includes researchers from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). The paper will appear online in the February 23 issue of Science Express.

Approximately eight million peopl

A team of researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, working in partnership with colleagues from Senegal, has found that intermittent preventive malaria treatment of children under five has a dramatic impact on malaria frequency.

In a randomised, placebo-controlled trial, 1,136 children aged between two months and five years received either intermittent preventive treatment, consisting of one dose of artesunate plus one dose of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, or t