Body

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Imagine yourself swimming in a pool: It's the movement of your arms and legs, not the viscosity of the water, that mostly dictates the speed and direction that you swim.

For tiny organisms, the situation is different. Microbes' speed and direction are subjected more to the physical vagaries of the fluid around them.

"For bacteria to swim in water," explained Jay Tang, associate professor of physics at Brown University, "it's like us trying to swim through honey. The drag is dominant."

HOUSTON -- (Nov. 19, 2008) -- Rice University scientists on the hunt for a better way to clean up the stubborn pollutant TCE have created a method that lets them watch molecules break down on the surface of a catalyst as individual chemical bonds are formed and broken.

"We can see the vibrations of the bonds between the atoms of our molecules," said researcher Michael Wong. "By watching the way these vibrations change frequency and intensity with time, we can watch how molecules transform into other molecules step-by-step."

Kingston, ON – A Queen's University study sheds new light on the way one of our cell enzymes, implicated in causing tissue damage after heart attacks and strokes, is normally kept under control.

Led by Biochemistry professor Peter Davies, the research team's discovery will be useful in developing new drug treatments that can aid recovery in stroke and heart disease, as well as lessen the effects of Alzheimer's and other neurologically degenerative diseases.

Scientists at Penn State are leaders of a team that is the first to report the genome-wide sequence of an extinct animal, according to Webb Miller, professor of biology and of computer science and engineering and one of the project's two leaders. The scientists sequenced the genome of the woolly mammoth, an extinct species of elephant that was adapted to living in the cold environment of the northern hemisphere. They sequenced four billion DNA bases using next-generation DNA-sequencing instruments and a novel approach that reads ancient DNA highly efficiently.

The highly specialized worker castes in ants represent the pinnacle of social organization in the insect world. As in any society, however, ant colonies are filled with internal strife and conflict. So what binds them together? More than 150 years ago, Charles Darwin had an idea and now he's been proven right.

HANOVER, NH – Two Dartmouth researchers call for greater scrutiny of the relationship between medical journalists and the health care industries they cover. Their study was published online today, Nov. 19, in the British Medical Journal, or BMJ.

The BMJ paper outlines three areas where journalists might become entangled in conflict-of-interest issues: during educational activities that may be drug company sponsored, when accepting sponsored awards, or in the day-to-day practice of reporting the news by relying too heavily on industry supplied sources.

(Washington) A white paper, How is a Shortage of Primary Care Physicians Affecting the Quality and Cost of Medical Care?, released today by the American College of Physicians (ACP) documents the value of primary care by reviewing 20 years of research. An annotated bibliography based on a literature review of more than 100 studies documents the evidence to support the critical importance of primary care in providing patients with better outcomes at lower cost, and the urgency of the need to prevent shortages of primary care physicians.

The TECNALIA Technological Corporation is leading research in Spain on The Future Internet through projects within the 7th EU Framework Programme such as m:Ciudad, MUGGES and 4WARD, with the aim of promoting a structural change in the Network of Networks and designing of a new architecture capable of providing the services of the next decades.

New Rochelle, NY, November 19, 2008—Biotech scientists increasingly are applying genomics technologies to toxicology research to better understand the effects of novel drug candidates on a variety of organ systems, reports Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN). They are especially interested in figuring out a new compound's mechanism of action and eventually developing a predictive toxicology technique, according to the November 15 issue of GEN.

Philadelphia, November 19, 2008 - The American College of Physicians (ACP) and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) have released a joint statement on the importance of adult vaccination against an increasing number of vaccine-preventable diseases. The statement has been endorsed by 17 other medical societies representing a range of practice areas.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 95 percent of vaccine-preventable diseases occur in adults and more than 46,000 adults die of vaccine-preventable diseases or their complications.

BETHLEHEM, PA (November 19, 2008)— A ban on fast food advertisements in the United States could reduce the number of overweight children by as much as 18 percent, according to a new study being published this month in the Journal of Law and Economics. The study also reports that eliminating the tax deductibility associated with television advertising would result in a reduction of childhood obesity, though in smaller numbers.

ATHENS, Ohio (Nov. 19, 2008) — A new class of compounds called phosphaplatins can effectively kill ovarian, testicular, head and neck cancer cells with potentially less toxicity than conventional drugs, according to a new study published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

MADISON, WI, NOVEMBER 17, 2008 -- One of the biggest threats to today's farmlands is the loss of soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil organic matter (SOM) from poor land-management practices. The presence of these materials is essential as they do everything from providing plants with proper nutrients to filtering harmful chemical compounds to the prevention of soil erosion. Sustainable management practices for crop residues are critical for maintaining soil productivity, but being able to measure a loss in the quality of soil can be difficult.

One of the most reliable indicators to predict that a person will develop type 2 diabetes is the presence of insulin resistance. Insulin is produced in the pancreas and is the hormone responsible for ensuring that glucose reaches several tissues and organs in the body, such as muscles. Insulin resistance is characterized by the lack of tissue response to insulin and is counteracted by a greater production of insulin by the pancreas.

A drug based on a chemical found in garlic can treat diabetes types I and II when taken as a tablet, a study in the new Royal Society of Chemistry journal Metallomics says.

When Hiromu Sakurai and colleagues from the Suzuka University of Medical Science, Japan, gave the drug orally to type I diabetic mice, they found it reduced blood glucose levels.