The exploration of near-Earth space will enter a new phase on 26 July when a spacecraft called Tan Ce 2 (Explorer 2) lifts off from Taiyuan spaceport, west of Beijing, on a Chinese Long March 2C rocket. The launch is currently scheduled to take place at 08:23 BST (07:23 GMT).

Tan Ce 2 is the second spacecraft to be built for the Double Star programme, a unique collaboration between Chinese and European scientists. Its predecessor, Tan Ce 1 (Explorer 1), was successfully launched on a sim

A review article by Yale researchers reaffirms that the vast majority of people with cardiovascular disease can travel safely on airlines, provided they follow basic guidelines such as carrying an ample supply of medication or waiting two weeks to travel after having a cardiac procedure.

Published in the July 20 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, the article reviewed previous studies on air travel and cardiovascular disease. “We pulled together work that has been done on the topic, syn

While rovers and orbiting spacecraft scour Mars searching for clues to its past, researchers have uncovered another piece of the red planet in the most inhospitable place on Earth — Antarctica.

The new specimen was found by a field party from the U.S. Antarctic Search for Meteorites program (ANSMET) on Dec. 15, 2003, on an ice field in the Miller Range of the Transantarctic Mountains, roughly 750 kilometers from the South Pole. This 715.2-gram black rock, officially designated MIL 03346, w

New sources of computing power – derived from such novel areas as neuron-like cells and powerful chemical reactions – could form the heart of the next generation of computers. The University of the West of England and four research partners have just won £1.8 million in government funding to carry out research into computers that are inspired by nature. This means UWE is playing a key role in two out of only five nationally funded projects aimed at such exciting multidisciplinary research.

For nearly a decade, scientists have known that leptin plays an important fat-burning role in humans. But the map of leptin’s path through the body – the key to understanding how and why the hormone works – is still incomplete.

Now a small but critical section of that map is charted, based on new research conducted at Brown Medical School and Rhode Island Hospital and at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

The research team found that lepti

Scientists at Johns Hopkins are calling for simultaneous evaluation of both genetic and epigenetic information in the search to understand contributors to such common diseases as cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Writing in the August issue of Trends in Genetics, available now online, the scientists provide a framework for systematically incorporating epigenetic information into traditional genetic studies, something they say will be necessary to understand the genetic and environmental factors be

For the estimated six to seven million Americans with psoriasis, the warm-weather months of summer might be the most challenging. Instead of being able to cover up their condition with sweaters or pants, psoriasis patients – forced to keep cool by wearing short-sleeved shirts and shorts – find themselves revealing the raised, thickened patches of red skin and silvery-white scales that they try so desperately to hide. Now, new treatment advances offer patients more hope in finding a life-long solutio

Independent research groups have discovered novel therapeutic targets in the battle of the bulge

Independent research groups have discovered novel therapeutic targets in the battle of the bulge. By altering the expression of a single — albeit different – gene, Drs. Roger Davis (UMASS Medical School, USA) and Ying-Hue Lee (Academia Sinica, Taiwan) have succeeded in creating two different strains of transgenic mice that don’t gain weight, even when fed fat-laden, high calorie die

A nanocrystalline metal is one whose average grain size is measured in billionths of a meter, much smaller than in most ordinary metals. As the grain size of a metal shrinks, it can become many times stronger, but it also usually loses ductility. To take advantage of increasing strength with decreasing grain size, researchers must first understand a fundamental problem: by what processes do nanosized crystals of metal stretch, bend, or otherwise deform under strain?

A team of re

The site where Europe’s spacecraft are launched into orbit, the Atlantic shoreline of French Guiana, is also the starting point for another hardly less remarkable journey: the epic migration of the critically endangered leatherback turtle.

Scientists have been using tracking sensors to follow the long treks of individual leatherbacks, then overlaying their routes with sea state data, including near-real time maps of ocean currents gathered by satellites including ESA’s ERS-2

The secret to cowbird success is to join your nestmates in making noise, then hog the food

America’s brown-headed cowbird and the European cuckoo are the classic parasitic birds, laying their eggs in the nests of other bird species and leaving the chick-rearing to another parent.

But while a cuckoo hatchling thrives by muscling its host’s eggs out of the nest and hogging all the food, a new study by biologists from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University

Chicken liver may seem like an odd component of a medical procedure, but for thousands of patients over the past generation, the cuisine has been doctor’s orders to help diagnose gastrointestinal disorders.

Perhaps not for much longer, though, based on the results of a recent Medical College of Georgia School of Allied Health Sciences student project.

Micah Grant, Woldeab Medhin and Aaron Scott, juniors in the School of Allied Health Sciences’ nuclear medicine

Suspected large lakebeds that once were scattered on the planet Mars have not yet been found, say the research team that operated the twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Their work appears in the current issue of Science magazine.

Members of the team have written several articles in the magazine, among them “The Spirit Rover’s Athena Science Investigation at Gusev Crater” that deals with the search for water on the red planet, and “Pancam Multispectral Imaging Results from the

Researchers at Cedars-Sinai’s Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute have found that the combination of immunotherapy and chemotherapy significantly slowed tumor progression and extended survival of patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), extremely aggressive and incurable brain tumors.

Although the exact mechanism is yet to be identified, the research team theorizes that like a one-two punch, the anti-tumor vaccine delivers an initial blow to the tumor cells which increas

Researchers from the University of Chicago have discovered the first of a new class of “protective factors” that appear to be required for the development of memory T cells, the cells that form the core of a vaccine response. The finding could help scientists create more effective vaccines and may lead to potent immune system-based therapies against diseases that have previously eluded vaccines, such as cancer or AIDS.

When the immune system detects an invader, such as a virus, T c

By comparing three different species’ genomes and adding some good old-fashioned genetic analysis, scientists have uncovered the identity of the last of eight genes known to contribute to Bardet-Biedl syndrome, a rare disorder characterized by a combination of some otherwise common problems, including obesity, learning difficulties, diabetes and asthma.

The identification of the BBS3 gene ends the search for primary BBS-causing genes in families studied for years by a team of sc

A type of ‘friendly bacteria’ has been the key for researchers at the University of Dundee who have just developed a treatment that offers the opportunity of new therapies for the management of one of the UK’s most common forms of inflammatory bowel disease – ulcerative colitis. Results from a four-week patient trial led by Professor George Macfarlane showed that many of the patients’ symptoms were dramatically reduced to near normal levels.

Affecting an estimated fifty thous

A Mayo Clinic researcher is the first to develop a series of three-dimensional (3D) models of an enzyme responsible for the replication of the deadly SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory syndrome) virus. These instantaneous “structures-in-time” are central to designing an anti-SARS drug — and are therefore a welcome advance as the virus continues to threaten public health.

The structure and dynamics of the SARS viral enzyme, called chymotrypsin-like cysteine proteinase, is described in

Certain rare gene mutations can contribute significantly to low levels of a beneficial form of cholesterol in the blood, researchers have found. Low levels of this cholesterol, known as high-density lipoprotein (HDL), are a major risk factor for heart disease.

Gene mutations previously known to affect HDL levels had small effects individually, and it was thought many such mutations needed to accumulate before HDL levels were significantly reduced. The new finding, however, demonst

Two new moons orbiting between Mimas and Enceladus, discovered by the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, may be the smallest bodies so far seen around the ringed planet.

The moons are approximately three kilometres and four kilometres across. Located 194 000 kilometres and 211 000 kilometres from the planet’s centre, the moons are between the orbits of two other Saturnian moons, Mimas and Enceladus. They are provisionally named S/2004 S1 and S/2004 S2, bringing the current