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News | Archive (16 September 2009)
New evidence that green tea may help improve bone health
— 17:00 GMT | HealthResearchers in Hong Kong are reporting new evidence that green tea - one of the most popular beverages consumed worldwide and now available as a dietary supplement - may help improve bone health. They found that the tea contains a group of chemicals that can stimulate bone formation and help slow its breakdown. Their findings are in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a bi-weekly publication. The beverage has the potential to help in the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis and other bone diseases that affect million worldwide, the researchers suggest…
Pesky fruit flies learn from experienced females
— 17:00 GMT | BiologyA common household nuisance, the fruit fly, is capable of intricate social learning much like that used by humans, according to new research from McMaster University…
Study of isolated snakes could help shed light on venom composition
— 17:00 GMT | BiologyWhile studying a way to more safely and effectively collect snake venom, University of Florida researchers have noticed the venom delivered by an isolated population of Florida cottonmouth snakes may be changing in response to their diet…
Biofuel production could undercut efforts to shrink Gulf 'Dead Zone'
— 17:00 GMT | EnvironmentScientists in Pennsylvania report that boosting production of crops used to make biofuels could make a difficult task to shrink a vast, oxygen-depleted 'dead zone' in the Gulf of Mexico more difficult. The zone, which reached the size of Massachusetts in 2008, forms in summer and threatens marine life and jobs in the region. Their study is scheduled for the 1 October issue of ACS' semi-monthly journal Environmental Science and Technology…
Toward the design of greener consumer products
— 17:00 GMT | EnvironmentSo you're a manufacturer about to introduce a new consumer product to the marketplace. Will that product or the manufacture of the product contribute to global warming through the greenhouse effect? Until now, there was no clear way to answer that question. Scientists are reporting development of a new method for screening molecules and predicting how certain materials, ranging from chemicals used in carpeting to electronics, will contribute to global warming. Their study is scheduled for the 12 November issue of ACS' Journal of Physical Chemistry A, a weekly publication…
How HIV cripples immune cells
— 17:00 GMT | HealthIn order to be able to ward off disease pathogens, immune cells must be mobile and be able to establish contact with each other. The working group around Professor Dr Oliver Fackler in the Virology Department of the Hygiene Institute of the Heidelberg University Hospital has discovered a mechanism in an animal model revealing how HIV, the AIDS pathogen, cripples immune cells: Cell mobility is inhibited by the HIV Nef protein. The study was published in the highly respected journal 'Cell Host and Microbe.' This discovery may have pointed the way towards a new treatment approach…
Persistent pain may accelerate signs of ageing by 2-3 decades in middle-aged adults
— 17:00 GMT | HealthYounger people with pain look similar in terms of their disability to people who are two to three decades older without pain, according to a study published in this month's issue of the Journal of the American Geriatric Society. The results of the study uncovered that people with pain develop the functional limitations classically associated with ageing at much earlier ages…
Phylogenetic analysis predicts the mechanism of sex determination in extinct marine reptiles
— 17:00 GMT | Geology and palaeontologyLong extinct sea reptiles not only had live births, but the sex of their offspring was genetically pre-determined, according to research published in the current (17 September) issue of the journal Nature…
Inhibitors of important tuberculosis survival mechanism identified
— 17:00 GMT | HealthAttempts to eradicate tuberculosis (TB) are stymied by the fact that the disease-causing bacteria have a sophisticated mechanism for surviving dormant in infected cells. Now, a team of scientists including researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, Stony Brook University (SBU), Weill Cornell Medical College, and The Rockefeller University has identified compounds that inhibit that mechanism - without damaging human cells. The results, described in the current issue of Nature, include structural studies of how the inhibitor molecules interact with bacterial proteins, and could lead to the design of new anti-TB drugs…
Reactive oxygen's role in metastasis
— 15:06 GMT | HealthResearchers at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) have discovered that reactive oxygen species, such as superoxide and hydrogen peroxide, play a key role in forming invadopodia, cellular protrusions implicated in cancer cell migration and tumour metastasis. Sara Courtneidge, professor and director of the Tumour Microenvironment Program at Burnham's NCI-designated Cancer Centre, and colleagues have found that inhibiting reactive oxygen reduces invadopodia formation and limits cancer cell invasion. The study was published on 15 September in the journal Science Signaling…
The smallest extrasolar planet discovered
New information about the heart of the Crab Pulsar revealed