Researchers at Kiel University have succeeded in showing that DNA strands differ in their light sensitivity depending on their base sequences. Their results are reported by Nina Schwalb and colleagues in the current issue of the journal Science appearing on Oct. 10, 2008.
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Friday, October 10th, 2008
Astronomers have used ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer to conduct the first high resolution survey that combines spectroscopy and interferometry on intermediate-mass infant stars. They obtained a very precise view of the processes acting in the discs that feed stars as they form. These mechanisms include material infalling onto the star as well as gas being ejected, probably as a wind from the disc.
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Friday, October 10th, 2008
Yale scientists have created nanowire sensors coupled with simple microprocessor electronics that are both sensitive and specific enough to be used for point-of-care disease detection, according to a report in Nano Letters.
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Friday, October 10th, 2008
Researchers have identified stem cells with the capacity to build fat. Although they have yet to show that the cells can renew themselves, transplants of the progenitor cells isolated from the fat tissue of normal mice can restore normal fat tissue in animals that are otherwise lacking it.The findings may yield insight into the causes of obesity, a condition characterized by an increase in both the size and number of fat cells.
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Friday, October 10th, 2008
Why are some countries more prone to political corruption? Viviana Stechina from Uppsala University, Sweden, has investigated why corruption among the political elite was more extensive in Argentina than in Chile during the 1990s. Among other things, her research shows that greater transparency does not necessarily lead to less corruption.
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Friday, October 10th, 2008
A research team led by David E. Chavez at Los Alamos National Laboratory has now developed a novel tetranitrate ester, which is solid at room temperature, is a highly powerful explosive, and can be melt-cast into the desired shape.
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Friday, October 10th, 2008
The stickleback fish, Gasterosteus aculeatus, is one of the most thoroughly studied organisms in the wild, and has been a particularly useful model for understanding variation in physiology, behavior, life history and morphology caused by different ecological situations in the wild.
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Friday, October 10th, 2008
Extracellular high mobility group box 1 was implicated as a late mediator of endotoxin lethality. It has been recently demonstrated that the serum levels of HMGB1 correlated with the severity of severe acute pancreatitis. A research group in China investigated that delayed ethyl pyruvate therapy protected against distant organ injury and prolonged survival time via reducing serum HMGB1 levels in rats with experimental SAP.
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Friday, October 10th, 2008
Macro-regenerative nodules that is regenerative nodules larger than 5 mm, are occasionally found in cirrhotic liver and were previously considered as precancerous lesions. A research group in Taiwan found that MRN is also found in cirrhotic liver caused by biliary atresia. Most MRN can be differentiated from hepatocellular carcinoma by using computer tomograghy and magnetic resonance imaging. However, some MRN have atypical imaging features, and it is difficult to differentiate them from HCC.
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Friday, October 10th, 2008
The prevalence rate of laryngopharyngeal reflux in studied subjects with reflux esophagitis was 23.9 percent. Age, hoarseness, and hiatus hernia were factors significantly associated with LPR. In addition, the patients who coexisted with hiatus hernia and hoarseness had very high odds ratio for LPR. In 23 patients with hiatus hernia, the group with LPR was found to have lower trend of esophagitis grading. The group without LPR contrarily had a higher trend of grading.
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Friday, October 10th, 2008