BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Emergency room doctors and nurses around the nation worry that hospitals are not adequately prepared to handle casualties from a radioactive 'dirty bomb,' said researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).
The finding underscores the need for better hospital preparedness training and clearer guidelines for managing radiological events, the researchers said. A dirty bomb combines conventional explosives and radioactive materials.
A team of researchers from Penn State and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center has discovered a way to use light to control certain proteins that catalyze biochemical reactions. "This is one of the first examples of someone successfully controlling the activity of a protein using light," said Stephen Benkovic, Penn State Evan Pugh Professor of Chemistry, holder of the Eberly Family Chair in Chemistry, and one of the team's leaders.
New research suggests that lightening and volcanoes may have sparked early life on Earth. Researcher Jeffrey Bada at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and colleagues reanalyzed Stanley Miller's classic origin of life experiment, offering a new analysis on how the essential building blocks of life may have arose from volcanic eruptions.
The origin of life experimental apparatus made famous by Stanley Miller resides in the Bada Lab at Scripps.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A classic experiment proving amino acids are created when inorganic molecules are exposed to electricity isn't the whole story, it turns out. The 1953 Miller-Urey Synthesis had two sibling studies, neither of which was published. Vials containing the products from those experiments were recently recovered and reanalyzed using modern technology. The results are reported in this week's Science.
BOSTON, Mass. (Oct. 16, 2008) — Despite the rise of systems biology, many geneticists continue to probe genes in isolation. They even use cutting-edge RNA interference (RNAi) technology to knock down one gene at a time. This approach often yields a narrow view of cellular systems.
Now, researchers at Harvard Medical School, the Institute for Cancer Research, and the Institut de Biologia Molecular de Barcelona have widened the lens, using RNAi to systematically knock down pairs of genes in fruit fly cells. The findings appear in the Oct. 17 issue of Science.
The means by which proteins provide a 'border control' service, allowing cells to take up chemicals and substances from their surroundings, whilst keeping others out, is revealed in unprecedented molecular detail for the first time today (16 October) in Science Express.
Washington, D.C.—The building blocks of life may have emerged in volcanic eruptions on the early Earth, according to a new analysis of classic experiments performed more than fifty years ago. Using modern techniques to examine samples from the original experiments, researchers discovered previously undetectable organic compounds. The results, reported in the October 17 issue of Science, point to the possible contribution of volcanism to the beginning of life on Earth.
DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University chemists say they have developed a new way to measure temperature changes inside the body with unprecedented precision by correcting a subtle error in the original theory underlying Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).
"We can get five to 10 times better accuracy in temperature maps than is possible with the best possible conventional methods," said Warren Warren, a Duke chemistry professor who is corresponding author of a new report appearing in the Oct. 17 issue of Science. The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
When Barack Obama began his Presidential campaign, his rhetoric emphasized abstract notions of hope, change, and judgment. In contrast, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and other candidates frequently presented detailed, concrete proposals on a host of topics ranging from foreign policy issues such as the Iraq War to domestic issues such as the economy and health care reform. Political commentators and opinion page writers criticized Obama for his lack of specifics, yet voters continued to respond to his message.
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – A team of Rutgers University scientists led by Richard H. Ebright and Eddy Arnold has identified a new antibiotic target and a new antibiotic mechanism that may enable the development of broad-spectrum antibacterial agents effective against bacterial pathogens resistant to current antibiotics. In particular, the results could lead the way to new treatments for tuberculosis (TB) that involve shorter courses of therapy and are effective against drug-resistant TB.
Researchers are hot on the trail of a whole new class of broad-spectrum antibiotics, according to a new report in the October 17th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- After spending years developing a computational model to help illuminate cell signaling pathways, a team of MIT researchers decided to see what would happen if they "broke" the model.
The results, reported in the Oct. 17 issue of the journal Cell, reveal new ways in which cells process chemical information and could indicate how to maximize the effectiveness of disease treatments such as chemotherapy.
Evanston, Ill. - October 16, 2008 – Two new articles examine the theory of "fetal programming" and their effect on racial health disparities. The studies, published in American Journal of Human Biology, suggest that the higher rates of hypertension and cardiovascular disease present in African Americans may be a consequence of low birth weights, and that these low birth weights may be a result of social rather than genetic factors.
October 16, 2008 -- A South African treatment study conducted by researchers in the Department of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health shows that mortality among TB-HIV co-infected patients can be reduced by a remarkable 55%, if antiretroviral therapy (ART) is provided with TB treatment at the same time. The randomized, known as the SAPIT (Starting Antiretrovirals at three Points in Tuberculosis) trial, randomly assigned TB-HIV co-infected patients to receive ART.