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Science is the answer to everything.

A new class of catalysts devised by a team of researchers from Boston College and MIT provides a highly selective, efficient and environmentally friendly new platform for research in medicine, biology and materials science.

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New work at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies reveals how a genetic switch, known as FoxJ1, helps developing embryos tell their left from their right. While at first glance the right and left sides of our bodies are identical to each other, this symmetry is only skin-deep. Below the surface, some of our internal organs are shifted sideways — heart and stomach to the left, liver and appendix to the right.

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Northwestern University Researchers wondered if the brains of the elderly with still laser sharp memory were different than everyone else’s. So, they took a novel approach and investigated what goes right in an aging brain that stays nimble. Scientists examined the brains of deceased people called “super aged” because they had high performance on memory tests when they were over 80. They found their brains had many fewer fiber-like tangles than the brains of elderly, non-demented individuals.

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When given a choice between viewing pictures of cocaine and a variety of other images, cocaine addicted individuals, as compared to healthy, non-addicted research subjects, show a clear preference for the drug-related images. Findings from this study, which was conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, will be presented at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington D.C. on Sunday, Nov. 16, 2008.

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Microvesicles - tiny membrane-covered sacs - released from glioblastoma cells contain molecules that may provide data that can guide treatment of the deadly brain tumor. Massachusetts General Hospital researchers have found tumor-associated RNA and proteins in membrane microvesicles called exosomes in blood samples from glioblastoma patients. Detailed analysis of exosome contents identified factors that could facilitate a tumor’s growth through delivery of genetic information or proteins, or signify its vulnerability to particular medications.

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Data from a large-scale prevention trial presented at the American Association for Cancer Research’s Seventh Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research show no protective effect from vitamin E on prostate cancer or vitamin C supplementation on total cancer.

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Pilot study results suggest that difluoromethylornithine can modulate biomarkers of cell proliferation in patients with Barrett’s esophagus and mucosal dysplasia.

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According to data presented at the Seventh Annual American Association for Cancer Research International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research, an understanding of the relationship between calcium and magnesium may lead to new avenues of personalized prevention for colorectal cancer.

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The use of aspirin and other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs is significantly associated with lower PSA levels, especially among men with prostate cancer, say researchers at Vanderbilt University.

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World leaders confront global crisis. Economic summit in Washington is likely only a first step to new rules to prevent financial meltdown and market mayhem. In 1955 the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith wrote a classic book about …

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