A new way of pinpointing where zinc pollution in the atmosphere comes from could improve pollution monitoring and regulation, says research out this week in the journal Analytical Chemistry.
Imperial College London researchers say their work is a major breakthrough as current methods for analysing zinc pollution only measure pollution in the atmosphere; they do not trace it back to its source.
Keeping germs from cooperating can delay the evolution of drug resistance more effectively than killing germs one by one with traditional drugs such as antibiotics, according to new research from The University of Arizona in Tucson.
John W. Pepper proposes a new strategy in the arms race between humans and germs-- targeting the teamwork within gangs of germs.
Most drugs used to fight infections kill the vulnerable disease-causing organisms, or pathogens, but the resistant ones survive. The next generation will all carry the resistance to the drug.
A 10-year-old Chicago girl born with an abnormally small bladder that made her incontinent has become the first patient to benefit from a new robotic-assisted bladder-reconstruction method developed by surgeons at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
The surgeons describe their innovative technique in the December 2008 issue of the journal Urology. They have now performed the operation, using the DaVinci robotic surgical system, six times, with good results and no significant complications.
Scientists at the Buck Institute for Age Research have identified for the first time biomarkers of aging which are highly predictive of both chronological and physiological age. Biomarkers are biochemical features that can be used to measure the progress of disease or the effects of treatment. The research involves nematode worms, microarrays which measure changes in gene expression, and complex computer algorithms. This is the first step toward identifying similar biomarkers in humans which would provide a means of scientifically validating anti-aging therapies.
Screening for a panel of gene variants associated with the risk for type 2 diabetes can identify adults at risk for the disorder but is not significantly better than assessment based on traditional risk factors such as weight, blood pressure and blood sugar levels. A multi-institutional research team, led by a Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) physician, reports their analysis of data from the Framingham Heart Study in the November 20 New England Journal of Medicine.
Acute kidney injury (AKI)—which is often caused by trauma, illness, or surgery—predisposes elderly individuals to the most serious form of chronic kidney disease (CKD), known as end stage renal disease (ESRD), according to a study appearing in the January 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN). The findings indicate that close medical follow-up is important for maintaining the health of patients who have experienced kidney damage.
Individuals who were underweight at birth are at increased risk of developing a condition called secondary focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, according to a study appearing in the January 2009 issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN). Because birth history is often overlooked by kidney specialists who take care of adult patients, this risk factor is likely to be under-recognized.
Testing very young babies for HIV and giving antiretroviral therapy (ART) immediately to those found infected with the virus dramatically prevents illness and death, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study found that giving ART to HIV-infected infants beginning at an average age of 7 weeks made them four times less likely to die in the next 48 weeks, compared with postponing ART until signs of illness or a weakened immune system appeared--the standard of care when the study began.
Current estimates for head and neck cancer survival are largely inaccurate because they widely disregard many of the most common diseases such patients have in addition to their primary cancer, says Jay Piccirillo, M.D., a head and neck specialist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, the Siteman Cancer Center and Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
This highlights a broader problem with cancer survival statistics, which generally don't take into account the effect of co-existing conditions, or comorbidities, according to Piccirillo.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Plants that range northward because of climate change may be better at defending themselves against local enemies than native plants.
So concludes a team of scientists including a University of Florida geneticist. The team's findings, reported in today's online edition of Nature, suggest that certain plants could become invasive if they spread to places that were previously too cold for them.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Imagine yourself swimming in a pool: It's the movement of your arms and legs, not the viscosity of the water, that mostly dictates the speed and direction that you swim.
For tiny organisms, the situation is different. Microbes' speed and direction are subjected more to the physical vagaries of the fluid around them.
"For bacteria to swim in water," explained Jay Tang, associate professor of physics at Brown University, "it's like us trying to swim through honey. The drag is dominant."
HOUSTON -- (Nov. 19, 2008) -- Rice University scientists on the hunt for a better way to clean up the stubborn pollutant TCE have created a method that lets them watch molecules break down on the surface of a catalyst as individual chemical bonds are formed and broken.
"We can see the vibrations of the bonds between the atoms of our molecules," said researcher Michael Wong. "By watching the way these vibrations change frequency and intensity with time, we can watch how molecules transform into other molecules step-by-step."
Kingston, ON – A Queen's University study sheds new light on the way one of our cell enzymes, implicated in causing tissue damage after heart attacks and strokes, is normally kept under control.
Led by Biochemistry professor Peter Davies, the research team's discovery will be useful in developing new drug treatments that can aid recovery in stroke and heart disease, as well as lessen the effects of Alzheimer's and other neurologically degenerative diseases.
Scientists at Penn State are leaders of a team that is the first to report the genome-wide sequence of an extinct animal, according to Webb Miller, professor of biology and of computer science and engineering and one of the project's two leaders. The scientists sequenced the genome of the woolly mammoth, an extinct species of elephant that was adapted to living in the cold environment of the northern hemisphere. They sequenced four billion DNA bases using next-generation DNA-sequencing instruments and a novel approach that reads ancient DNA highly efficiently.
The highly specialized worker castes in ants represent the pinnacle of social organization in the insect world. As in any society, however, ant colonies are filled with internal strife and conflict. So what binds them together? More than 150 years ago, Charles Darwin had an idea and now he's been proven right.