Body

Tecnalia Research & Innovation is undertaking the innovation of casting processes with its "plasma torch." This new system enables great precision when heating the metal, thus reducing operational costs, enhancing metallurgical quality and saving energy.

Diabetes has many severe consequences that can only be prevented by maintaining blood glucose levels at values that are extremely close to those of non-diabetics. There have recently been considerable advances in insulin treatment but these require a precise knowledge of fluctuations in blood glucose levels that is difficult to obtain. Measurements are generally taken while patients are in clinics but the results may be misleading as a result of differences in food intake and exercise, as well as the associated stress, all of which may lead to changes in the normal patterns.

History and geology, not current ecology, are likely what has made tropical forests so variable from site to site, according to a new study published in the journal Science, co-authored by Liza Comita, research associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

"The same ecological processes seem to be working worldwide. The difference is that tropical organisms have been accumulating for vast periods of time," said Nathan J.B. Kraft, post-doctoral fellow at the University of British Colombia, who led the research team.

While efforts to unlock the subtleties of DNA have produced remarkable insights into the code of life, researchers still grapple with fundamental questions. For example, the underlying mechanisms by which human genes are turned on and off—generating essential proteins, determining our physical traits, and sometimes causing disease—remain poorly understood.

UCLA life scientists and their colleagues have discovered the first evidence of the H1N1 virus in animals in Africa. In one village in northern Cameroon, a staggering 89 percent of the pigs studied had been exposed to the H1N1 virus, commonly known as the swine flu.

SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 23, 2011 – University of Utah researchers have discovered a new class of compounds that stick to the sugary coating of the AIDS virus and inhibit it from infecting cells – an early step toward a new treatment to prevent sexual transmission of the virus.

Development and laboratory testing of the potential new microbicide to prevent human immunodeficiency virus infection is outlined in a study set for online publication by Friday in the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics.

Washington, DC (September 22, 2011) -- Patients who receive kidney transplants must take lifelong medications that, while preventing organ rejection, can also compromise other aspects of health. Immunosuppresive drugs called calcineurin inhibitors protect transplanted organs from being rejected, but they can be toxic to the kidneys over the long term and can make patients susceptible to infection, cancer, and other threats.

For decades, ecologists have toiled to nail down principles explaining why some habitats have many more plant and animal species than others.

Much of this debate is focused on the idea that the number of species is determined by the productivity of the habitat.Shouldn't a patch of prairie contain a different number of species than an arid steppe or an alpine tundra?

Maybe not, says an international team of scientists that pooled its resources to re-evaluate the relationship between species numbers and habitat productivity.

Snails, mussels, squids – as different as they may look, they do have something in common: they all belong to the phylum Mollusca, also called molluscs. An international team of researchers headed by Kevin Kocot and Professor Ken Halanych, USA, with the participation of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), Germany, has carried out research into the relationships among different molluscs as part of a wide-ranging molecular phylogenetic study. This phylum includes more than 100,000 extant species which are divided into eight major lineages.

AMES, Iowa - For decades, scientists have believed that a relationship exists between how much biomass plant species produce and how many species can coexist.

This idea comes from a 1970s study that showed as plant biomass produced – called plant productivity - in a system increased, so did the number of plant species – referred to as plant richness - to a point. After that point, the number of plant species is thought to decline.

SEATTLE, WA -- Opioids -- a class of medicines commonly given for pain -- were associated with a higher risk of pneumonia in a study of 3,061 adults, aged 65 to 94, e-published in advance of publication in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. The study from researchers at Group Health Research Institute and the University of Washington (UW) also found that benzodiazepines, which are drugs generally given for insomnia and anxiety, did not affect pneumonia risk.

African ranchers often prefer to keep wild grazers like zebras off the grass that fattens their cattle.

But a new study by Kenyan and University of California at Davis researchers shows that grazing by wild animals doesn't always harm, and may sometimes benefit, cattle.

The results are published in this week's issue of the journal Science.

For immediate release -- Sept. 22, 2011 (Toronto) -- A new research study conducted by an international team of experts recommends a public health approach to cannabis - including evidence-based guidelines for lower-risk use - to reduce the health harms that result from the use of cannabis. Led by CAMH scientist and CIHR/PHAC* Chair in Applied Public Health (Simon Fraser University, Vancouver) Dr. Benedikt Fischer, the study is being published in the September/October 2011 issue of the Canadian Journal of Public Health (CJPH).

Females in inbred populations become more promiscuous in order to screen out sperm from genetically incompatible males, according to new study by the University of East Anglia (UEA).

Published tomorrow in the journal Science, the findings help answer the puzzling evolutionary question of why females in most species mate with multiple males – even though a single male can provide full fertility and promiscuity can carry fatal risks for the female.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – An international research team led by biologists at the University of California, Riverside and Texas A&M University has released for the first time a large and robust DNA matrix that has representation for all mammalian families. The matrix – the culmination of about five years of painstaking research – has representatives for 99 percent of mammalian families, and covers not only the earliest history of mammalian diversification but also all the deepest divergences among living mammals.