As a result, governments and health officials need to begin to think about how to respond to an anticipated increase in the number and scope of climate-related health crises, ranging from killer heat waves and famine, to floods and waves of infectious diseases.

That, in a nutshell, was the message delivered to scientists here today (Feb. 20) at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) by Jonathan A. Patz, an authority on the human health

New biomolecular technologies have largely failed to deliver the hoped-for knockout punch breakthrough against the defences of disease-causing bacteria, says a leading Canadian specialist in antibiotic resistance.

Techniques such as genomic sequencing and high throughput screening were expected to make the development of new antibiotic compounds easier and more productive. But in most cases the microbes continue to hold the upper hand – and if three billion years of bacterial his

New mathematical model predicts live-saving benefits of different screening schedules

Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston have devised a mathematical tool that predicts how the frequency of mammograms affects the number of lives saved by detecting breast cancers at an earlier stage. With screening guidelines and financial coverage varying among health systems and insurers – sometimes dramatically – the model provides quantitative predictions of the mortality ben

Technique reveals new method for better bone grafts

Tissue engineers can choose from a wide range of living cells, biomaterials and proteins to repair a bone defect. But finding the optimum combination requires improved methods for tracking the healing process.

New Georgia Tech research points to better ways to heal and regenerate bones using microcomputed tomography (micro-CT) imaging — a process 1 million times more detailed than a traditional CT scan. The new micro

A form of beta blocker, a drug commonly used to lower blood pressure and ward off repeat heart attacks, may provide the answer to preventing osteoporosis, said a Baylor College of Medicine researcher.

In a report that appears online today in the journal Nature, Dr. Gerard Karsenty, BCM professor of molecular and human genetics, and his colleagues demonstrate in mice that the sympathetic nervous system mediates the resorption or destruction of bone through a special receptor on

How do pollen particles provoke allergic reactions? A new study in the February 21 issue of The Journal of Experimental Medicine puts some of the blame on bioactive molecules that are released from pollen. These molecules bind to immune cells and cause them to launch a typical allergy-promoting immune response. Pollen from plants exposed to air pollutants produce more of these allergy-provoking compounds than do pollen from unpolluted areas, possibly explaining why allergies are more preval

Prospects for a safe, effective AIDS vaccine are improving as researchers from the public and private sectors begin to collaborate in new and creative ways, researchers said today at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

According to the Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS) approximately 39 million people are living with HIV, and an estimated 4.9 million people were newly infected with HIV in 2004 alone.

N

People who live with migraine headaches show a “riskier” profile for cardiovascular disease than those without migraines, according to a new study published in the February 22 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

The large population-based study was conducted among 5,755 participants in the Netherlands. Researchers identified 620 people with migraine in the group from 5,135 people without migraine.

The study provided a cardiovascul

Researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) have found an explanation for why some lung cancers stop responding to the drugs erlotinib (TarcevaTM) and gefitinib (Iressa®). This discovery may lead to the development of new therapies to use when these agents stop working. The research is to be published online in the open-access international journal PLoS Medicine on February 22, 2005.*

Gefitinib and erlotinib are so-called targeted therapies, in that they halt t

A technique for detecting prions in tissue, developed in recent years by UCSF scientists, is significantly more sensitive than the diagnostic procedures currently used to detect the lethal particles in samples of brain tissue from patients, according to a study performed by a UCSF team.

The finding indicates that the diagnostic technique, known as the conformation-dependent immunoassay (CDI), should be established as the standard approach for brain biopsies of patients suspected

In the first comprehensive examination of strenuous physical activity and the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have found that men who exercised regularly and vigorously early in their adult life had a lower risk for developing Parkinson’s disease compared to men who did not. The findings appear in the February 22, 2005 issue of the journal Neurology. Parkinson’s disease is a progressive nervous disease occurring generally afte

Injections with dirty or contaminated needles are not contributing to the spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa say researchers from Imperial College London and the Biomedical Research and Training Institute, Zimbabwe.

Recently, some scientists have suggested that medical injections with contaminated needles were an important, but ignored, factor in the spread of HIV across sub-Saharan Africa. However, research published today in Public Library of Science Medicine shows that injecti

The fight against liver cancer, one of the leading causes of cancer death worldwide, is being helped by 2.5 million euros from the EU’s Framework Programme.

PONT (Parallel Optimisation of New Technologies for Post-Genomics Drug Discovery) is a three-year specific targeted research project involving four biotechnology companies and two academic partners from the UK, Austria and Germany. It aims to bridge the gap in the drug development pipeline using a new approach in post-genomics

Music lovers could be in for the ultimate listening experience, thanks to a new range of speakers containing parts made of diamond, writes Marina Murphy in the Chemistry & Industry magazine. The unique properties of diamond make the speakers less susceptible to distortion and thus provide a clearer sound, say their manufacturers Bowers & Wilkins (B&W), UK.

The 800 Series speakers contain diamond ‘tweeter domes’ – the parts responsible for producing high-frequency sound. The domes are

A leading Canadian fish farming scientist is stirring the scientific waters by arguing that it may be safer to risk introducing exotic salmon into a marine ecosystem than to farm native ones there.

“The biggest environmental danger we face from salmon escapes is when farming species within their native range, such as Atlantic salmon in the Atlantic Ocean,” says Dr. Ian Fleming, Director of the Ocean Sciences Centre at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

He is prese

Researchers have created a way to transform the dead bone of a transplanted skeletal graft into living tissue in an experiment involving mice. The advance, which uses gene therapy to stimulate the body into treating the foreign splint as living bone, is a promising development for the thousands of cancer and trauma patients each year who suffer with fragile and failing bone grafts. The findings were posted online Feb. 13 and will appear in the March 1 issue of Nature Medicine.

The