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News | Archive (October 2010)
Mars volcanic deposit tells of warm and wet environment
— 31 Oct 2010 | AstronomyRoughly 3.5 billion years ago, the first epoch on Mars ended. The climate on the red planet then shifted dramatically from a relatively warm, wet period to one that was arid and cold. Yet there was at least one outpost that scientists think bucked the trend…
Immune system assassin's tricks visualised for the first time
— 31 Oct 2010 | HealthScientists from the UK and Australia have seen the human immune system's assassin - a protein called perforin - in action for the first time. The UK team, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Wellcome Trust, is based at Birkbeck College where they used powerful electron microscopes to study the mechanism that perforin uses to punch holes in rogue cells. The research is published today in Nature…
Parents' effort key to child's educational performance
— 30 Oct 2010 | HealthA new study by researchers at the University of Leicester and University of Leeds has concluded that parents' efforts towards their child's educational achievement is crucial - playing a more significant role than that of the school or child…
Researchers use math, maps to plot malaria elimination plan
— 30 Oct 2010 | HealthTwo University of Florida researchers and their international colleagues have used mathematical models and maps to estimate the feasibility of eliminating malaria from countries that have the deadliest form of the disease…
Is the shape of a genome as important as its content?
— 30 Oct 2010 | HealthIf there is one thing that recent advances in genomics have revealed, it is that our genes are interrelated, 'chattering' to each other across separate chromosomes and vast stretches of DNA. According to researchers at The Wistar Institute, many of these complex associations may be explained in part by the three-dimensional structure of the entire genome. A given cell's DNA spends most of its active lifetime in a tangled clump of chromosomes, which positions groups of related genes near to each other and exposes them to the cell's gene-controlling machinery. This structure, the researchers say, is not merely the shape of the genome, but also a key to how it works…
Discus fish parent young like mammalian mothers
— 30 Oct 2010 | BiologyFew fish are famed for their parenting skills. Most species leave their freshly hatched fry to fend for themselves, but not discus fish. Jonathan Buckley from the University of Plymouth, UK, explains that discus fish young feed on the mucus that their parents secrete over their bodies until they are big enough to forage. 'The parental care that they exhibit is very unusual,' says Buckley. Intrigued by the fish's lifestyle, Buckley's PhD advisor, Katherine Sloman, established a collaboration with Adalberto Val from the Laboratory of Ecophysiology and Molecular Evolution in Manaus, Brazil, and together with Buckley and Richard Maunder set up a colony of breeding discus fish to find out more about their strange behaviour…
Scripps Research team 'watches' formation of cells' protein factories for first time
— 30 Oct 2010 | HealthA team from The Scripps Research Institute has revealed the first-ever pictures of the formation of cells' 'protein factories.' In addition to being a major technical feat on its own, the work could open new pathways for development of antibiotics and treatments for diseases tied to errors in ribosome formation. In addition, the techniques developed in the study can now be applied to other complex challenges in the understanding of cellular processes…
Spice in curry could prevent liver damage
— 30 Oct 2010 | HealthCurcumin, a chemical that gives curry its zing, holds promise in preventing or treating liver damage from an advanced form of a condition known as fatty liver disease, new Saint Louis University research suggests…
Advance could change modern electronics
— 30 Oct 2010 | TechnologyResearchers at Oregon State University have solved a quest in fundamental material science that has eluded scientists since the 1960s, and could form the basis of a new approach to electronics…
Study links fresh Mars gullies to carbon dioxide
— 30 Oct 2010 | AstronomyA growing bounty of images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reveals that the timing of new activity in one type of the enigmatic gullies on Mars implicates carbon-dioxide frost, rather than water, as the agent causing fresh flows of sand…
Binary black hole system identified
Trio of galaxies mix it up