CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Illinois researchers have combined two molecular imaging technologies to create an instrument with incredible sensitivity that provides new, detailed insight into dynamic molecular processes.
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RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Rice, which is sensitive to drought due to its high water requirement, is particularly vulnerable to how global climate change is altering the frequency and magnitude of floods and droughts. If rice plants' combined tolerance to flooding and drought could be improved, however, rice productivity could be protected and even substantially increased.
- An international consortium of researchers led by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) genetically characterises almost all Spanish patients and studies the clinical impact of the mutations.
- The study describes over 130 pathogenic mutations and the origins and world distribution of some of the most frequent mutations.
- The predominant genetic mutation originated in Europe thousands of years ago and later migrated to America. The Canary island of La Palma and Brazil, with a high prevalence of the disease, were two areas in which the mutation spread widely.
Scientists are reporting the first evidence that consumption of a healthful antioxidant substance in apples extends the average lifespan of test animals, and does so by 10 percent. The new results, obtained with fruit flies — stand-ins for humans in hundreds of research projects each year — bolster similar findings on apple antioxidants in other animal tests. The study appears in ACS's Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A Purdue University scientist and researchers in Japan have produced a new class of improved plant growth regulators that are expected to be less toxic to humans.
Angus Murphy, a professor of horticulture, said the growth inhibitors block the transport of auxin, a plant hormone that, when transported throughout the plant, controls growth processes. Current growth regulators that inhibit auxin transport are inefficient because they also have hormonelike activity or affect other important plant processes. Current growth inhibitors also are often toxic.
Scientists are reporting discovery of a protein in the blood of lung cancer patients that could be used in a test for the disease — difficult to diagnose in its earliest and most treatable stages — and to develop drugs that stop lung cancer from spreading. Their study appears in ACS's Journal of Proteome Research.
COLLEGE STATION — Researchers have come closer to understanding how a common fungus "makes its living in the soil," which could lead to its possible "career change" as a therapeutic agent for plant and human health.
That's according to Dr. Charles Kenerley, Texas AgriLife Research plant pathologist, and a team of scientists from the U.S., India and France, whose study on Trichoderma virens is in February's Journal of Biological Chemistry.
A team of scientists has described two cladocerous crustaceans, which could be endemic to the Iberian Peninsula, and which were found in two lagoons, one in the lower basin of the Guadalquivir river, and the other in the grasslands of Extremadura. Both of these arthropods may today inhabit more areas in the Mediterranean region.
For the first time, quantitative—not qualitative—data analysis has demonstrated that time-of-flight (TOF) positron emission tomography (PET) scans can improve cancer detection. Research published in the March issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine shows that oncologic TOF fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET scans yielded significant improvements in lesion detection of lung and liver cancers over all contrasts and body mass indexes.
To determine if a tissue biopsy reveals the presence of cancer, a histologist often screens for cells with an abnormal appearance or a specific visible trait such as a larger-than-usual nucleus. However, by the time a cancer is physically noticeable, the disease may be in its later stages and more difficult to treat.
The current edition of JAMIA, today's top-ranked journal in biomedical and health informatics, features new scientific research—in print and online—on some of healthcare's most hotly discussed HIT-related topics, written by prominent experts working in health and biomedicine:
Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Weill Cornell Medical College have designed artificial "protocells" that can lure, entrap and inactivate a class of deadly human viruses—think decoys with teeth. The technique offers a new research tool that can be used to study in detail the mechanism by which viruses attack cells, and might even become the basis for a new class of antiviral drugs.
Before you can build that improved turbojet engine, before you can create that longer-lasting battery, you have to ensure all the newfangled materials in it will behave the way you want—even under conditions as harsh as the upper atmosphere at supersonic speed, or the churning chemistry of an ion cell. Now computer scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have improved software* that can take much of the guesswork out of tough materials problems like these.
A powerful scientific tool for selecting cost-effective and environmentally preferable building products is now available as a free, web-based application. Developed and maintained by the National Institute Standards and Technology (NIST), BEES (Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability) Online is based on consensus standards and designed to be practical, flexible and transparent.
bees onlineThe web-based version allows easier access for users and will enable new building products to be added to the database as the information becomes available.
Lower potassium levels in the blood may help explain why African-Americans are twice as likely to be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes as whites, according to a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers.
The findings, if confirmed, suggest that part of diabetes prevention may someday prove as easy as taking a cheap potassium supplement.