When it comes to deciding what harvester ant daughters will be when they grow up, mother queens hold considerable sway, according to a new study. The researchers report evidence that eggs are predetermined to become workers or queens from the moment they are lain.
A completely new treatment strategy for serious Staphylococcus aureus infections has been developed. The research comes at a time when strains of antibiotic-resistant Staph (known as MRSA, for methicillin-resistant S. aureus) are spreading in epidemic proportions in hospital and community settings. Among the deadliest of all disease-causing organisms, Staph is the leading cause of human infections in the skin, soft tissues, bones, joints and bloodstream, and drug-resistant Staph infections are a growing threat.
Concerns about long-term effects of beef cattle browsing more than 11 million acres of Florida grazinglands led Agricultural Research Service scientists to examine soil fertility changes in bahiagrass-based beef cattle pastures from 1988 to 2002. Analysis of data from that research shows that cattle can be managed in an environmentally safe way, despite the large quantities of waste the animals generate.
New research may help explain why the anticancer drug Avastin, which targets a growth factor responsible for creation of new blood vessels, causes potentially fatal brain inflammation in certain patients. Institute scientists mimicked the drug's activity in mice and found that it damaged the cell lining that prevents fluid from leaking from the ventricle into the brain.
It sounds too good to be true ... a little inexpensive pill that could block the development of some cancers, strengthen bones, prevent multiple sclerosis and alleviate winter depression. But it's not science fiction. The "new aspirin" could be Vitamin D. Just as we discovered that aspirin can guard against heart disease, Vitamin D could become a useful weapon in the fight against MS, osteoporosis, mild depression and one of the most devastating diseases of our time -- cancer.
The immune system's powerful cellular mutation and repair processes appear to offer important clues as to how lymphatic cancer develops, Yale School of Medicine researchers report.
Critically ill patients who need a ventilator to breathe face a high risk of pneumonia. The lung infection, however, is exceedingly difficult to diagnose because a patient's underlying condition often skews laboratory test results and masks pneumonia's symptoms -- a reality that can delay appropriate antibiotic treatment. Now there is an early, more accurate detection method on the horizon.
A healthy ear emits soft sounds in response to the sounds that travel in. Detectable with sensitive microphones, these otoacoustic emissions help doctors test newborns' hearing. A deaf ear doesn't produce these echoes. New research shows that, contrary to the current scientific thought, the emissions don't leave the ear the same way they entered.
A drug therapy currently used to treat non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and rheumatoid arthritis had a significant effect in treating the most common form of multiple sclerosis in a small, short-term clinical trial. Because the drug targets the immune system's B-cells, rather than the immune system's traditionally targeted T-cells -- long considered the primary culprit -- the finding provides a new insight into the cause of the disease, the researchers say.
Physicists have taken a step toward understanding the puzzling nature of high-temperature superconductors, materials that conduct electricity with no resistance at temperatures well above absolute zero. If superconductors could be made to work at temperatures as high as room temperature, they could have potentially limitless applications. But first, scientists need to learn much more about how such materials work.
A bizarre relationship between a gecko and a sap-sucking insect is caught on camera for the first time. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 16 Feb 2008 | 7:28 am
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Two shuttle Atlantis astronauts wrapped up a spacewalk on Friday to install a solar observatory and a science experiment on Europe's space lab.
An over-arching policy for supermarkets is needed to tackle obesity, waste and climate change, a report says. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 16 Feb 2008 | 12:08 am
Letter: Professor David Baltimore is wrong to suggest there is no hope in finding an HIV vaccine - that nature cannot be overcome Source: guardian.co.uk Science | 16 Feb 2008 | 12:02 am
Sharks will migrate into Antarctic waters if warming continues, threatening marine animals, scientists warn. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 15 Feb 2008 | 11:36 pm
Astronauts attach science experiments to the outside of Europe's Columbus module at the space station. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 15 Feb 2008 | 11:08 pm
OHSWEKEN, Ontario (Reuters) - In a grey, shed-like building on the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve in southern Ontario, Esenogwas Jacobs is getting her kindergarten students ready to head home for the day.
The quest to find traces of life on Mars looks gloomy after Nasa says the Red Planet was 'too salty'. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 15 Feb 2008 | 10:27 pm
CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. physicists have made a clock so accurate it will neither gain nor lose even a second in more than 200 million years, a finding sure to please even the most punctually minded.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Potentially deadly staph bacteria may be easily defeated by the body's own immune system once stripped of their golden hue by a drug developed to lower cholesterol, according to new research.
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Hair from women with breast cancer can be distinguished from hair obtained from women without the disease, researchers in Australia report.
Lack of vitamins and minerals may increase the risk of cancer, with the poor, obese and elderly being most vulnerable Source: guardian.co.uk Science | 15 Feb 2008 | 7:02 pm
Reversing ageing, reprogramming genes to prevent disease and producing clean energy will be among the biggest challenges of the next 50 years, say leading thinkers Source: guardian.co.uk Science | 15 Feb 2008 | 6:34 pm
GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States pledged on Friday to compensate countries if debris lands on their territory from a dying U.S. spy satellite that the Pentagon plans to shoot down.
OSLO (Reuters) - Scientists told the Norwegian government on Friday that exploiting thorium, a radioactive metal, for nuclear power production is an interesting but far-away alternative with unknown economic potential.
MENLO PARK, California (Reuters) - The United States must collaborate with other countries to achieve its goal of putting humans on Mars or it may fall short of its aims, scientists and former space officials said on Thursday.
A South Korean company
signs what it says is the
world's first commercial deal to clone a pet dog. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 15 Feb 2008 | 11:49 am
Scientists are no nearer finding a vaccine against HIV after more than 20 years of research, a top expert says. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 15 Feb 2008 | 10:23 am
