Body

The Aznalcóllar mining accident more than 11 years ago, which contaminated part of the Doñana National Park, also damaged reptile habitat there. Now a team of Spanish researchers, who have been studying the reptile community since 2000, have shown, by setting up artificial refuges, that the disappearance of natural refuges had a serious impact on lizard and snake numbers.

Jerusalem, November 30, 2009 – A novel technology involving use of stem cells, developed by Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers, has been applied to provide better and rapid healing for patients suffering from complicated bone fractures..

A major obstacle to HIV research is the virus's exquisite specialisation for its human host – meaning that scientists' traditional tools, like the humble lab mouse, can deliver only limited information. Now, a team of researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access Journal of Biology have made an ingenious assault on this problem by creating a mouse that has key features of HIV infection without being infected with HIV.

If you ever thought the stress of seeing your extended family over the holidays was slowly killing you—bad news: a new research report in the December 2009 print issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology shows that you might be right. Here's the good news: results from the same study might lead to entirely new treatments that help keep autoimmune diseases like lupus, arthritis, and eczema under control.

Heidelberg, 25 November 2009 - In the fruit fly Drosophila, oskar mRNA, which is involved in defining the animal's body axes, is produced in the nuclei of nurse cells neighbouring the oocyte, and must be transported to the oocyte and along its entire length before being translated into protein.

Researchers at Uppsala University and University Children's Hospital in Uppsala have devised powerful new tools for typing cells from children with acute lymphatic leukemia and for prediction of how children with leukemia will respond to chemotherapy. The study was recently published in electronic form by the prestigious hematological journal Blood.

Two so-called invasion proteins are crucial for infection. Each binds a specific receptor on the surface of human cells, which stimulates the host cell to take up the pathogen. Normally, these receptor molecules exert a different function, for example the regulation of cell growth and wound healing. The group's results have now been published in the current issue of the "Journal of Molecular Biology".

The best coastal areas in the Iberian Peninsula in terms of harnessing wave energy are the Costa da Morte and Estaca de Bares, in La Coruña, Galicia, according to two pioneering studies by researchers from the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC), published this month in the journals Energy and Renewable Energy.

Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC (November 26, 2009) – Cities can progress from consuming energy and emitting greenhouse gases (GHG) to actually producing energy while saving on GHG emissions, due to substitution of fossil fuels elsewhere. These findings are based on research in the city of Aalborg in Northern Denmark, published this week in Waste Management & Research, published by SAGE. Cities following similar waste management strategies are already having a far-reaching impact on GHG emissions in some regions of Europe.

Jerusalem, November 25, 2009 – How does our biological system know that it is supposed to operate on a 24-hour cycle? Scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have discovered that a tiny molecule holds the clue to the mystery.

Human as well as most living organisms on earth possess circadian a (24-hour) life rhythm. This rhythm is generated from an internal clock that is located in the brain and regulates many bodily functions, including the sleep-wake cycle and eating.

London, ON – For the first time, scientists at The University of Western Ontario have shown that insects exposed to repeated periods of cold will trade reproduction for immediate survival.

The study, conducted by Biology PhD candidate Katie Marshall and supervisor Brent Sinclair, has been published online today by the prestigious journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Scientists from the Biological Station of Doñana (CSIC) and the have characterized the population genetic diversity of an animal species (a mouse, in this case) in its whole distribution. This information is essential for developing successful conservation plans for such species.

In the December 2009 issue of the Journal of General Physiology (www.jgp.org), Moss et al. report a comprehensive investigation employing Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) to study the {gamma}-amino acid (GABA) transporter GAT1, a member of the family that includes transporters for neurotransmitters dopamine (DAT), serotonin (SERT), norepinephrine (NET) and glycine (GlyT).

DURHAM, N.C. – Finding and treating a tumor without disturbing normal tissue presents challenges – sometimes the most effective therapies can be invasive and harsh.

Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have devised a way they might deliver the right therapy directly to tumors using special molecules, called aptamers, which specifically bind to living tumor tissue.

They screened a large pool of aptamers in a rodent with liver cancer until they found the best molecule to bind to a tumor protein.

A recent study suggests that increasing patient responsibility for making medical decisions may decrease their willingness to accept risky treatment options. Details of this proof-of-concept study appear in the December issue of Arthritis Care & Research, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American College of Rheumatology.