The Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF), in the celebration of its 20th anniversary, organised a meeting whit a group of international experts to discuss the environmental future of the planet on the 2 and 3 of October. The work of both days is summarized in the Declaration of Barcelona 2008: Challenges and Pathways to Earth Sustainability, which you will find bellow.
Body
The Stowers Institute's Rong Li Lab has characterized a mechanism that allows for asymmetrical cell division during meiosis in oocytes. By tracking chromosome movement in live mouse oocytes, the team discovered that chromosomes can recruit to their vicinity a protein called formin-2. This protein allows the oocyte to retain the majority of the cytoplasm – a requirement for embryonic development after fertilization – while the other daughter cell (called a polar body) resulting from the asymmetric division gets only a minimal amount and subsequently dies.
COLUMBIA, Mo. – When it comes to understanding the effectiveness and safety of using herbal therapies with other drugs, much is unknown. Now, a University of Missouri researcher will study how black cohosh - an herbal supplement often used to relieve hot flashes in menopausal women - interacts with tamoxifen, a common drug used to treat breast cancer.
Hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury is a serious complication but unavoidable problem in liver surgery including liver transplantation and hepatic resection. The most important consequence of this pathological process is multiple organ failure with a high mortality rate. Steroid therapy suppresses liver injury by a variety of mechanisms, including increased tissue blood flow and suppression of oxygen free radicals, arachidonic acid derivatives, lysosomal proteases (cathepsins) and cytokine production.
Cancer immune surveillance is considered to be important in the anti-tumor protection of the host. The growing tumor escapes the immune control under the immunosuppressive conditions. The surgical removal of the tumor may reverse the immunosuppression. The TF antigen and Tn belong to tumor-associated carbohydrate antigens (TACA). TF antigen is implicated in the metastatic spread due to the adhesion of cancer cells to the endothelium.
A team of scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has found a way to genetically enhance the scent of flowers and implant a scent in those that don't have one.
Smell plays an important role in our lives: It influences the way in which we choose fruit and vegetables, perfume, and even a partner. And yet, smell is not just what we smell with our noses, it's also what we taste, explains Prof. Alexander Vainstein, who is heading the team at the Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment. "Aroma is of major importance for defining the taste of food."
They investigated the effects of ethanol on the IGF-I system with the involvement of JNK1/2 activity and ADH by using each chemical inhibitor in primary cultured rat hepatocytes. The results indicate that ethanol inducedp-JNK1/2 activation is associated with the IGF-I system and cell viability in hepatocytes. Furthermore, alcohol dehydrogenase is involved in the relationship between ethanol-induced inactivation of p-JNK1/2 and the changes of the IGF-I system and cell viability.
The research team led by Levent Erdem from Şişli Etfal Teaching and Research Hospital of Turkey investigated the prevalence and demography of microscopic colitis in patients with diarrhea of unknown etiology and normal colonoscopy in Turkey. This will be published on 21 July 2008, in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this question.
In geology as in cancer research, the silver bullet theory always gets the headlines and nearly always turns out to be wrong.
For geologists who study mass extinctions, the silver bullet is a giant asteroid plunging to earth.
But an asteroid is the prime suspect only in the most recent of five mass extinctions, said USC earth scientist David Bottjer. The cataclysm 65 million years ago wiped out the dinosaurs.
"The other four have not been resolvable to a rock falling out of the sky," Bottjer said.
Australians with mental illness smoke at four times the rate of the general population, says a new study from the University of Melbourne.
The study, published today in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, says despite smoking halving among Australia's general population over the past 20 years there has been little change in smoking rates among people with psychiatric disabilities.
Thermoelectric materials can be assembled into units, which can transform the thermal difference to electrical energy or vice versa – electrical current to cooling. An effective utilization requires however that the material supplies a high voltage and has good electrical, but low thermal conductivity.
Infants born more than one week past their due dates have a higher risk of both impaired health and death, according to two new studies by authors from the University of California's San Francisco and Berkeley campuses.
The studies compared more than 2.5 million normal-weight births from healthy pregnancies of 37 to 42 weeks gestation, the range that is considered to be full-term. Findings appear in the October, 2008 issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and also can be found online at www.ajog.org.
At dinner time, parents will often tell their child to clean their plate. However, that old maxim might lead kids to eat more than they need, especially when portions are adult-sized or supersized.
In findings to be presented at The Obesity Society's Annual Meeting on Oct. 7, children took more food when larger portions were made available to them.
Barcelona (EMBARGOED UNTIL 11:30 Central European Time: October 7, 2008)—Health experts from the Wildlife Conservation Society today released a report that lists 12 pathogens that could spread into new regions as a result of climate change, with potential impacts to both human and wildlife health and global economies. Called The Deadly Dozen: Wildlife Diseases in the Age of Climate Change, the new report provides examples of diseases that could spread as a result of changes in temperatures and precipitation levels.
PHILADELPHIA – Moderate consumption of red wine may decrease the risk of lung cancer in men, according to a report in the October issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention¸ a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
"An antioxidant component in red wine may be protective of lung cancer, particularly among smokers," said Chun Chao, Ph.D., a research scientist at Kaiser PermanenteDepartment of Research and Evaluation in Pasadena, California.