A harmless shard from the shell of a common childhood virus may halt a biological process that kills a significant percentage of battlefield casualties, heart attack victims and oxygen-deprived newborns, according to research presented Sunday, September 6, 2009, at the 12th European meeting on complement in human disease in Budapest, Hungary.
An innovative collaboration among UC Davis engineers, physicists and radiologists has resulted in the first-ever fully 3-D breast imaging technique that uses both high-resolution PET and CT scanning.
Analysis of ancient DNA from skeletons suggests that Europe’s first farmers were not the descendants of the people who settled the area after the retreat of the ice sheets. Instead, the early farmers probably migrated into major areas of central and eastern Europe about 7,500 years ago, bringing domesticated plants and animals with them, says Barbara Bramanti from Mainz University in Germany and colleagues. The researchers analyzed DNA from hunter-gatherer and early farmer burials, and compared those to each other and to the DNA of modern Europeans. They conclude that there is little evidence of a direct genetic link between the hunter-gatherers and the early farmers, and 82 percent of the types of mtDNA found in the hunter-gatherers are relatively rare in central Europeans today.
Blacksburg, Va. — Virginia Tech’s nuclear engineering program will receive 0,000 for faculty development and 9,948 for fellowships from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
Genes that regulate the energy consumption of cells have a different structure and expression in type II diabetics than they do in healthy people, according to a new study from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet published in
The U.S. has taken the next step toward construction of the revolutionary Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI): a network of ocean observing components, and their associated cyberinfrastructure, that will allow scientists to examine ocean processes on global, regional and coastal scales.
Scientists are addressing the threat of antimicrobial drug resistance by launching two new clinical trials aimed at prolonging the effectiveness of currently available antibacterial drugs. The concept underlying both studies: Less is more.
Pandemic swine flu can infect cells deeper in the lungs than seasonal flu can, according to a new study published today in Nature Biotechnology. The researchers, from Imperial College London, say this may explain why people infected with the pandemic strain of swine-origin H1N1 influenza are more likely to suffer more severe symptoms than those infected with the seasonal strain of H1N1. They also suggest that scientists should monitor the current pandemic H1N1 influenza virus for changes in the way it infects cells that could make infections more serious.
New York, NY (September 10, 2009): A new study published in the September 11, 2009 issue of Science by researchers at the NYU School of Medicine reveal a conceptually novel mechanism that plays an important role in making human pathogens like Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus anthracis resistant to numerous antibiotics. The study led by Evgeny A. Nudler, PhD, The Julie Wilson Anderson Professor of Biochemistry at NYU Langone Medical Center, provides evidence that Nitric Oxide, or NO, is able to alleviate the oxidative stress in bacteria caused by many antibiotics and also helps to neutralize many antibacterial compounds. Eliminating this NO-mediated bacterial defense renders existing antibiotics more potent at lower, less toxic, doses. With infectious diseases the major cause of death worldwide, the study paves the way for new ways of combating bacteria that have become antibiotic resistant.
People with mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety are the heaviest smokers in the country, but their doctors are afraid to ask them to quit. They assume that if their patients try to quit smoking, their mental disorders will get worse.
