Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that immune cells called B cells and the antibodies they produce play a critical early role in defending the body against West Nile Virus. The results are published in the February issue of the Journal of Virology.

Mice that lacked B cells and antibodies were completely unable to combat the virus. They developed serious brain and spinal-cord infection and ultimately died.

“These findings may help expla

It seems that biologists know everything about the Alpine hare (Lepus timidus), particularly about its ration. However, the Yakut scientists, Anatoly Pshennikov and Vladimir Pozdnyakov have discovered a previously unknown method the hares employ in wintertime when they suffer from the lack of food.

Forage is scarce in winter in Yakutia. The Alpine hares are content to feed on bushes and young trees. If the distance between the ground and a thin twig is less than a meter, the hare bi

Drivers wishing to avoid traffic jams could learn from the behaviour of army ants, according to new research by biologists at the University of Bristol.

The study, carried out by Professor Nigel Franks, found similarities between the problems encountered by New World army ants as they migrate between nest sites and the thousands of drivers who commute to work daily in British cities.

While commuting drivers tend to want to beat jams by cutting in and trying to take short-cuts, the a

Using the same technology that creates tiny, precisely organized computer chips, a Johns Hopkins research team has developed beds of thousands of independently moveable silicone “microneedles” to reveal the force exerted by smooth muscle cells.

Each needle tip in the gadget, whose development and testing is reported this week in the advance online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, can be painted with proteins cells tend to grab onto. By measuring how far a contr

Like a well-trained soldier with honed survival skills, the common bacterium, Group A Streptococcus (GAS), sometimes can endure battle with our inborn (innate) immune system and cause widespread disease. By investigating the ability of combat-ready white blood cells (WBCs) to ingest and kill GAS, researchers have discovered new insights into how this disease-causing bacteria can evade destruction by the immune system. The research is being published this week in the Online Early Edition of the Procee

Research by Oxford University and collaborators has shed new light on the last 100,000 years of human migration from Africa into Asia. The new genetic study confirms that some of the earliest migrants travelled into Asia by a southern route, possibly along the coasts of what are now Pakistan and India. The researchers identified a genetic marker in museum samples of inaccessible populations from the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. This allowed them to re-interpret previous genetic studies from

Glucosamine supplements reduce knee pain in people with cartilage damage and possibly the degenerative joint disease osteoarthritis, concludes research in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Glucosamine is produced naturally in the body and found primarily in joint cartilage, damage to which often precedes osteoarthritis. Glucosamine capsules are widely available from health food shops, supermarkets, and over the internet

The researchers conducted a small trial in which 24 patie

A new brain imaging method pioneered by a German research group from several institutions can now produce images that localize the areas of the brain involved when test subjects perform physical activities, and can show how portions of the brain interact with each other. The technique, dubbed synchronization tomography, involves mapping the fluctuating magnetic fields produced by tiny electrical currents in the brain, and determining which brain regions are synchronized with an activity – such as a t

A new study suggests that brief exposures to pure oxygen not only help chronic and other hard-to-heal wounds heal completely, such exposures also help wounds heal faster.

Ohio State University surgical scientists used topical oxygen therapy to treat 30 patients with a total of 56 wounds. The therapy required placing a bag containing pure oxygen over the wound for 90 minutes a day. More than two-thirds of the difficult wounds healed with the oxygen treatment alone.

Wounds in this cl

Treatment appropriate for some patients who are not good surgical candidates

A minimally invasive, experimental treatment is proving successful in removing small kidney tumors from appropriate patients, report researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). In a study in the February 2003 issue of Radiology, the MGH team describes how a technique called radiofrequency ablation (RFA) destroyed all renal cell carcinoma (RCC) tumors less than 3 cm in size and some larger tumors, d

Salmonella, E. coli, shigellosis, hepatitis A, and Norwalk — these food-borne diseases can produce symptoms that run from the mild to life-threatening. The young and old are particularly vulnerable and while consumption of beef and poultry have been the most common sources of such infections, fresh fruits and vegetables are being increasingly implicated in such outbreaks. So much so, that plant disease scientists are now taking a closer look at this issue.

“Historically, human pathogens l

A joint research project by scientists in Cardiff, UK, has developed a new protein, which could end the suffering of thousands.

The research, by scientists at Cardiff University and the University of Wales College of Medicine (UWCM), and funded mainly by the Wellcome Trust, is designed to tackle the problem of chronic inflammation – which can lead to serious disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis and bacterial peritonitis.

Now a two-year development programme is getting un

By solving a long-standing puzzle about how the influenza virus assembles its genetic contents into infectious particles that enable the virus to spread from cell to cell, scientists have opened a new gateway to a better understanding of one of the world’s most virulent diseases.

This insight into the genetic workings that underpin infection by flu, reported today (January 27, 2003) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), provides not only a better basic understa

While about 80 percent of people with epilepsy gain significant relief from drug therapy, the remaining 20 percent have seizures that cannot be controlled by medications. Many of these people have a particular type of epilepsy called partial epilepsy. A new study shows that people with partial epilepsy often have seizures controlled by medications for years before their seizures become drug-resistant. The study also found that periods when seizures stopped for a year or more are common in these patie

Hardworking sodium/ potassium pump fundamentally similar to free-flowing ion channel

Right now, in your body, tiny pumps in the fatty membranes surrounding all your cells are hard at work pushing select charged ions, such as sodium, potassium or calcium, through those membranes. Like a water pump in a high-rise apartment building overcoming the force of gravity to move water up to a tank on its roof, these ion pumps work against “electrochemical gradients” to transport ions from one s

Compound could lead to a new generation of antibiotics that battle resistance

University at Buffalo scientists have discovered a promising new drug lead that works by inhibiting the sophisticated bacterial communication system called quorum sensing.

The new compound is active against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, the gram-negative infection that strikes — and usually kills — cystic fibrosis patients and many others whose immune systems are compromised. The bacteria, like many o