A breed of pea seeds has been created that contains antibodies against coccidiosis, a disease caused by a parasite that attacks chickens. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Biotechnology describe the development of the GM seeds, and demonstrate their effectiveness in preventing this economically important illness.
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The link between deprivation and premature death is as strong today as it was in the early 1900s according to research published on bmj.com today.
The study, the first of its kind to directly compare modern deprivation and mortality with conditions a century ago in the whole of England and Wales, has been undertaken by Ian Gregory, Senior Lecturer at Lancaster University.
The BMA's call to ban alcohol advertising because of its damaging effects on young people is "a logical recommendation to attempt to reverse the all embracing pro-alcohol culture that has grown up in a period of deregulation and liberalisation over the last quarter of a century," according to Ian Gilmore, President of the Royal College of Physicians and Chairman of the Alcohol Health Alliance.
A doctor who developed Guillain-Barré syndrome will consider having the swine flu jab when she returns to work this autumn, despite claims that the vaccine is linked to an increased risk of the disease.
Laura Claire Price, a specialist in respiratory and intensive care medicine, examines the reasons why the vaccine might cause the syndrome, reviews the current evidence, and concludes that she will consider having the jab when it becomes available.
Approaching the anniversary of Lehman Brothers' demise, NJIT Finance Professor Michael Ehrlich, an expert on market failure, says that the Feds made the right move when they allowed the investment firm to go bankrupt.
"It would have been much worse had the Federal Reserve and Treasury officials allowed Lehman Brothers to stay in business," said Ehrlich. "Lehman was the trigger, but not the cause of our financial problems. A Lehman rescue would only have allowed the financial crisis to grow."
Columbus, Ohio (September 8, 2009) – Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), a division of the American Chemical Society, announced that on September 7 it recorded the 50 millionth substance in CAS REGISTRY, the world's most comprehensive and high-quality compendium of publicly disclosed chemical information. The recently registered substance is a novel arylmethylidene heterocycle with analgesic properties. Reaching the 50 million mark so quickly is an indicator of the accelerating pace of scientific knowledge.
AMES, Iowa - Mark Widrlechner may someday be known as the modern-day Johnny Appleseed for ash trees.
As the devastating insect emerald ash borer is working its way across North America destroying almost all the native ash trees it encounters, Widrlechner is rapidly collecting and storing ash tree seeds.
Like the legendary Appleseed who planted apple trees across the country, Widrlechner's seed stocks can serve as a national source for reintroducing ash trees once the devastation can be controlled.
"The Arctic as we know it may soon be a thing of the past," says Eric Post, associate professor of biology at Penn State University. Post leads a large, international team that carried out ecosystem-wide studies of the biological response to Arctic warming during the fourth International Polar Year, which ended in 2008. The team's results will be reported on 11 September 2009 in the journal Science.
Arctic and Antarctic research teams pulled back to warmer climates when the International Polar Year wrapped last March. But the call has gone out for a return to the poles for a more focused investigation into the effects of global warming. Leading the charge back to the Canadian Arctic is David Hik, a University of Alberta biology professor and a lead researcher with IPY.
CHICAGO (September 10, 2009) – When business leaders leave organizations following poor decisions, constituents often find comfort in replacing them with insiders – others familiar with the problem and original choices. But, new research shows that such decisions are best left to a completely unrelated, outside party, contrary to the natural inclination to go to an insider – someone with personal connections to the old boss.
Researchers at The Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee have identified the genetic region in rats responsible for cardiovascular collapse during anesthesia. While it is well known that people have different cardiovascular sensitivity to anesthesia causing some to collapse even when low doses are administered, the mechanism responsible for this susceptibility is not clear.
RIVERSIDE, Calif. – A team of scientists at the University of California, Riverside has found that even second-hand tobacco smoke exposure can result in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a common disease and rising cause of chronic liver injury in which fat accumulates in the liver of people who drink little or no alcohol.
The researchers found fat accumulated in liver cells of mice exposed to second-hand cigarette smoke for a year in the lab. Such fat buildup is a sign of NAFLD, leading eventually to liver dysfunction.
Faulty cell division can put organisms, including people, on the pathway to diseases such as cancer, Robinson notes, and a better understanding of how cells respond to mechanical stress on their shapes could present new targets for both diagnosing and treating such diseases.
Working with hardy, single-celled protozoa that move and divide similarly to human cells, the scientists watched through microscopes while they deformed the cells' shapes with a tiny instrument that, like a soda straw, sucks in on the cell surface and creates distorted shapes.
LIVERPOOL, UK – 10 September 2009: Scientists at the University of Liverpool have traced the evolution of a species of tropical butterfly, infected with a bacterium that kills males, by comparing current butterfly populations with more than 200 museum specimens.
Bean plants' natural defences against bacterial infections could be unwittingly driving the evolution of more highly pathogenic bacteria, according to new research published today (10 September) in Current Biology.
The study sheds new light on how bacterial pathogens evolve and adapt to stresses from host plants. This information could help researchers develop new ways of tackling pathogens that cause extensive and costly damage to beans and other food crops.