Piercing the layer of smog enshrouding Titan, these images from the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens spacecraft reveal an exotic surface covered with a variety of materials in the southern hemisphere.

Using near-infrared light, these images taken by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer reveal the surface with unusual clarity. This colour image shows a false-colour combination of three previous images taken with different colour filters.

The yellow areas correspond to the hydro

Robert Hoffmann and Alfonso Valencia of the Spanish National Centre of Biotechnology (CNB/CSIC) in Madrid have developed a new web-based tool called iHOP (Information Hyperlinked over Proteins) to help researchers explore scientific literature and integrate information in a more controlled and targeted manner.

Reporting in the Nature Genetics journal (Nature Genetics 36, 664, 01 Jul 2004), the two scientists describe how iHOP, which was developed as part of the EU-funded ORIEL and TEMBLOR

A complete characterization of monoclonal antibodies also includes the determination of epitope specificity for a given set of monoclonal antibodies. Epitope mapping is a powerful tool in analysing the surface topography of an antigen. The binding of an antibody to the antigen defines a specific binding site or epitope which sterically interferes with the binding of another antibody which has the same or a closely located binding site. The specificity of pairs of antibodies can easily be determined

A protein responsible for regulating acid levels within cells – and pumping out acid accumulated in cardiac cells after a heart attack – activates in direct response to changes in a cell’s volume, according to a new study by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

Their findings show that the protein NHE1, which is found in the membranes of nearly all cells and is especially active in cancer cells, is regulated by the stretch and pull of the membrane as a cell changes volum

A new study by scientists at the University of Southampton suggests that MRSA contamination can be reduced by using copper alloys for surfaces in healthcare facilities.

Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a virulent organism, essentially resistant to all beta-lactam antibiotics (for example: penicillins, ampicillins, cephalosporins). It can cause skin, bone and life-threatening blood infections, as well as pneumonia.

In a study co-funded by the International Copp

Results from a multiyear study of severely depressed patients treated according to guidelines established by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas showed a significant improvement in patients’ symptoms and medical outcomes.

Called the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP), the guidelines, or algorithms, are a set of comprehensive management tools for doctors treating severely mentally ill patients within Texas’ publicly funded mental health care system. They are the res

A new protocol for bone marrow transplants, which does not require the destruction of the recipient’s immune system before transfer of the new bone marrow, is described by a group of Oxford scientists in the 6th of July issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Furthermore, Luis Graça, Alain Le Moine, Herman Waldmann and colleagues from the University of Oxford, UK also found that following bone marrow transplant it is possible to succes

Most visitors to the seaside are content to ride donkeys, eat ice cream, and build sandcastles. But, University of Leeds scientists have no time for sunbathing; they are witnessing the birth of a new species on the rocky shores of North Yorkshire.

Littorina saxatilis (right) is an unremarkable rough periwinkle – a small, grey-brown sea-snail which litters the coast by the million. But it has overcome its lack of charisma and grabbed the attention of scientists trying to unlock the secrets

Scientists have determined a three-dimensional (3-D) molecular image of how anthrax toxin enters human cells, giving scientists more potential targets for blocking the toxin, the lethal part of anthrax bacteria. The finding also points to a possible way to design anthrax toxin molecules that selectively attack tumor cells, as described in the journal Nature published online July 4. The study, funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Healt

Female fruit flies sleep around. Nobody knows exactly why, but Nina Wedell of Leeds University’s school of biology aims to find out.

Conventional wisdom on animal mating strategies said that females sought male partners with healthy genes to pass on to offspring, but this theory is now discredited, as it does not explain all variations of behaviour.

Instead it has been found that females often mate with numerous partners and screen sperm so that only the most healthy is used. What

Toni Schmader, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Arizona in Tucson, has won a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to explore how awareness of negative stereotypes impacts the cognitive functions of women and Latinos.

At issue is whether exposure to a negative stereotype can affect cognitive function. Social psychologists have recently discovered that women and racial or ethnic minorities often perform more poorly on academic tests when exposed to nega

Severe sepsis, is a costly complication in hospitalized cancer patients causing around one in ten cancer deaths each year in the USA, according to an article published today in Critical Care. The excessive response to infection in patients with severe sepsis injures critical organs such as the lungs and kidneys.

Dr Mark Williams and his colleagues from Eli Lilly & Co. in Indianapolis, and Health Process Management, LLC, Pennsylvania used data from six US states to analyze all the hospitaliza

WHO’s objective is to enable 3 million people living with HIV to have access to antiretroviral treatments by 2005. The development of simple and inexpensive generic fixed-dose combined therapies appears the most suitable solution for making possible this access to treatments in developing countries with meagre resources.

The tritherapies that associate two different classes of antiretrovirals (two inverse transcriptase nucleoside inhibitors and a non-nucleosidic inhibitor of this same viral

The health of people in Britain is being put at risk by official policy that discourages sunbathing and promotes use of sunblock products. The cost of disease caused by insufficient exposure to sunlight and consequent deficiency of vitamin D is estimated to be billions of pounds per year in Britain.

Government advice to “cover up, keep in the shade…and use factor 15 plus sunscreen”* is based on outdated information, mistaken interpretation of evidence and guesswork. It ignores evidence sho

University of Iowa researchers have shown for the first time that gene therapy delivered to the brains of living mice can prevent the physical symptoms and neurological damage caused by an inherited neurodegenerative disease that is similar to Huntington’s disease (HD).

If the therapeutic approach can be extended to humans, it may provide a treatment for a group of incurable, progressive neurological diseases called polyglutamine-repeat diseases, which include HD and several spinocereb

Scientists have made the first recordings of the human brain’s awareness of its own body, using the illusion of a strategically-placed rubber hand to trick the brain. Their findings shed light on disorders of self-perception such as schizophrenia, stroke and phantom limb syndrome, where sufferers may no longer recognize their own limbs or may experience pain from missing ones.

In the study published today in Science Express online, University College London’s (UCL) Dr Henrik Ehrsson, workin