Buildings built according to federal design criteria to be able to withstand earthquakes may not be able to survive the effects of explosions from bombs small enough to be carried by a terrorist, Penn State researchers have found.
While cautioning that their findings still must be evaluated in humans, University of California, San Francisco and Stanford University Medical Center researchers report that the cholesterol-lowering drug atorvastatin (Lipitor) significantly improved, prevented relapses or reversed paralysis in mice with an experimental disease that closely resembles multiple sclerosis. The study, reported in the November 7 issue of Nature, was conducted in mice with experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), the standard animal model for multiple sclerosis.
The ecological importance of phytoplankton, microscopic plants that free-float through the world’s oceans, is well known. Among their key roles, the one-celled organisms are the major source of sustenance for animal life in the seas. Now, researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego say that phytoplankton exert a significant and previously uncalculated influence on Earth’s climate.
Researchers in Leicester, England and Michigan will begin tests on a new cancer prevention drug, based on a natural compound found in red wine. The compound, resveratrol, is a natural agent found in grapes, peanuts and several berries. It is present in fruit juice from these berries and in wine. Consumption of resveratrol has been proposed as one possible explanation for the low incidence of cardiovascular disease in Southern European countries with high red wine consumption, and resveratrol has been shown to possess anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer activity in experimental models.
A team of researchers from Pennsylvania say an electronic nose – a relatively new version of a sensor previously used in the food, wine and perfume industries – can quickly and accurately diagnose pneumonia in critically ill, mechanically ventilated patients.
In the race to cure cancer, researchers look for roadblocks that could stop cancer in its tracks, preventing it from spreading to other parts of the body. Scientists from Wisonsin may have found that blockade – an enzyme critical to the ability of cells to metastasize, a biological phenomenon by which cells migrate.
The 2002 outbreak of phocine distemper virus, or PDV, in European harbor seals may reduce the population by more than half and that future outbreaks with similar characteristics would significantly increase the risk of population declines. Their findings are the first epidemiological data reported on the 2002 outbreak, which is still underway, and may help predict the recurrence of the outbreaks and the impact on the long-term growth and survival of the European harbor seal population.
Listeria and certain strains of E. coli are the scourge of picnics, but researchers at Harvard Medical School and London’s Hammersmith Hospital show in the November Gene Therapy that combining bacterial components of these bad bugs can create a powerful vector against melanoma challenged mice.
How do 30,000 genes in our DNA work together to form a large part of who we are? How do one hundred billion neurons operate in our brain? The huge number of factors involved makes such complex networks hard to crack. Now, a study published in the October 25 issue of Science uncovers a strategy for finding the organizing principles of virtually any network ? from neural networks to ecological food webs or the Internet.
Smokers with a specific genetic variant may be more vulnerable to cigarette cravings and relapse when trying to quit smoking, a study has found. This study also shows that the anti-depressant drug bupropion may lessen these effects, especially among females.
A California physicist will announce plans for the first known attempt to push a spacecraft into the Earth’s orbit with energy beamed up from the ground. The satellite will be called the Cosmos Sail, the first solar-sail craft to orbit Earth. The physics team developed the sail with researchers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Made from lightweight layers of aluminized mylar, the sail will allow a craft to be propelled from low orbit to high orbit and ultimately into interplanetary space, driven by microwave energy, similar to the way wind pushes a sailboat across the sea.
The greater use of intensivists, physicians who specialize in the management of critically ill patients, in intensive care units (ICUs) significantly reduces ICU mortality, hospital mortality and length of stay, according to a study published by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine researchers.
U.S. government scientists have demonstrated that a miniature positron emission tomography (PET) scanner, known as microPET, and the chemical markers used in traditional PET scanning are sensitive enough to pick up subtle differences in neurochemistry between known genetic variants of mice. This “proof-of-principle” experiment “opens up a whole new, non-invasive way to study and follow transgenic or genetically engineered strains of mice that serve as animal models for human neurological diseases, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease or psychiatric diseases such as substance abuse, depression, and anxiety disorders,” said Panayotis (Peter) Thanos, lead author of the study.