Body

Researchers from the University of Delaware and Washington University in St.

A relatively new, minimally invasive treatment was 93 percent successful in eradicating malignant kidney tumors, according to a recent study conducted by researchers from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, NC.

“I have performed many radiofrequency ablations of renal tumors and the results looked promising,” said Ronald J. Zagoria, MD, lead author of the study. “I wanted to scientifically review the data to better assess the results and look for patterns that might predict success or complications,” he said.

Finding an immune system in the social amoeba (Dictyostelium discoideum) is not only surprising but it also may prove a clue as to what is necessary for an organism to become multicellular, said the Baylor College of Medicine researcher who led the research that appears today in the journal Science.

One of the fundamental challenges facing organic synthesis in the 21st century is the need to significantly increase the efficiency with which carbon frameworks can be constructed and functionalized. Chemists at the University of Illinois are helping to meet this challenge by developing a class of carbon-hydrogen catalysts that are highly selective, reactive and tolerant of other functionality.M.

Researchers at Temple University have observed and documented electron transfer reactions on an electrode surface at the single molecule level for the first time, a discovery which could have future relevance to areas such as molecular electronics, electrochemistry, biology, catalysis, information storage, and solar energy conversion.

A new fingerprinting technique could potentially detect the diet, race and sex of a suspected criminal, according to new research published in the August edition of the journal Analytical Chemistry.

The team, led by Professor Sergei Kazarian from Imperial College London’s Department of Chemical Engineering, has devised a technique which collects fingerprints along with their chemical residue and keeps them intact for future reference.

The effect of logging on canopy nectar production in tall forest trees has for the first time been investigated by NSW DPI researchers, with funding from the Honeybee Program of the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation and Forests NSW.

State forests provide the major honey resource for the beekeeping industry in NSW.

While Forests NSW has a number of management practices in place to retain nectar-producing trees during logging operations, there has been no information on how much nectar is produced by retained trees or young trees regrowing after logging.

A special type of cell found in the eye has been found to be very important in regenerating the retina in zebrafish and restoring vision even after extensive damage. Now, a UK team of scientists believe they may be able to use these cells – known as Müller glial cells – to regenerate damaged retina in humans, according to a study published this month in the journal Stem Cells.

Research carried out at the Department of Physiology of the University of Granada (Universidad de Granada [http://www.ugr.es]) has revealed that goats’ milk has more beneficial properties to health than cows’ milk. Among these properties it helps to prevent ferropenic anaemia (iron deficiency) and bone demineralisation (softening of the bones).

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have identified a new technique for cleansing contaminated water and potentially purifying hydrogen for use in fuel cells, thanks to the discovery of a innovative type of porous material.

Researchers and clinicians have widely noted an intriguing link between some intestinal diseases and some forms of arthritis. In particular, chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) frequently afflicts patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS), marked by chronic inflammation of the spine and the sacroiliac joints. Separately, both IBD and AS have been shown to run in families. Yet, the specific genetic susceptibility, and whether it is the same for both diseases, remains a mystery.

A 30-year scientific debate over how specialized cells in the inner ear amplify sound in mammals appears to have been settled more in favor of bouncing cell bodies rather than vibrating, hair-like cilia, according to investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Arthritis is common among elderly Americans, and as the population ages it is expected to increase. At the same time, disability is increasing in patients with arthritis and the racial/ethnic composition of the U.S. is changing; minority populations are forecasted to increase from 30.6 percent of the population in 2000 to 49.9 percent by 2050.

Researchers have described a novel molecular pathway that may have a critical role in bone healing and have suggested that lithium, which affects this pathway, has the potential to improve fracture healing. The study, led by Benjamin Alman from the Hospital For Sick Children, Toronto, investigated the role of the â-catenin signaling pathway, which activates T cell factor -dependent gene transcription, and which is known to have a key regulatory role in embryonic skeletal development.

A condition that has to be met for the body to be able to keep warm, move and even survive is that the mitochondria - the cells' power stations - release the right amounts of energy. Scientists at Karolinska Institutet have now identified the first known factor that acts as a brake on cellular energy production.

Mitochondria release energy through a process known as cellular respiration - a chemical process inside each mitochondrion that results in the production of the cell's energy currency, the molecule ATP.