Cold Sugar in Space Provides Clue to the Molecular Origin of Life

Astronomers have discovered a frigid reservoir of simple sugar molecules in a cloud of gas and dust some 26,000 light-years away, near the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. The discovery suggests how the molecular building blocks necessary for the creation of life could first form in interstellar space. The astronomers detected the 8-atom sugar molecule glycolaldehyde in a gas-and-dust cloud called Sagittarius B2. Such clouds, often many light-years across, are the raw material from which new stars and planets are formed.

A novel, safer strategy for regulating gene expression

Researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School have created a novel, elegant, and safer system for controlling gene expression — turning genes on and off as needed — that involves an intervention as simple as giving a drug. Potentially, with this technique, a gene could even be activated by natural conditions in the body — for example, in a diabetic patient, a rise in glucose concentration would automatically turn on the gene responsible for insulin production.

Anger, hostility and depressive symptoms linked to high C-reactive protein level

Researchers have discovered that otherwise healthy people who are prone to anger, hostility and mild to moderate depressive symptoms produce higher levels of a substance that promotes cardiovascular disease and stroke. The substance, C-reactive protein (CRP), has garnered considerable attention for its role in both promoting and predicting cardiovascular disease and stroke in initially healthy people. It is produced by the liver in response to inflammation, and inflammation has recently been shown to underlie the plaque that forms inside arteries as they clog.

High energy mystery lurks at the galactic centre

A mystery lurking at the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy – an object radiating high-energy gamma rays – has been detected by an international team of astronomers. Their research, published today (September 22nd) in the Journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, was carried out using the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.), an array of four telescopes, in Namibia, South-West Africa.

Scientists discover potential new way to control drug-resistant bacteria

Based on an improved understanding of bacteriophages–viruses that infect bacteria–scientists report they have discovered a potential new way to control drug-resistant bacteria, an increasingly worrisome public health problem. The new research found that bacteriophages contain genes that allow them to quickly change their proteins to bind to different cell receptors. The researchers, who encountered this genetic property while working on an unrelated project, believe that this discovery could lead to the use of genetically engineered phages to treat bacterial infections that have become resistant to antibiotics.

Poplar DNA code cracked — a step in combating global warming?

Forests cover 30% of the world’s land area, house two thirds of life on earth, and are responsible for 90% of the biomass on dry land. So, the impact of trees on our daily life is enormous. Now, an international consortium – which includes researchers from the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) at Ghent University – has succeeded in deciphering the first tree genome, that of the poplar. Gaining knowledge of the poplar DNA is an important step in the research into ‘tree-specific genes’, which can be used to make trees even better air purifiers, to have them grow more quickly, or to make them easier to process into paper.

Bullish chemical could repel yellow fever mosquitoes

A naturally occurring chemical that may repel yellow fever mosquitoes can now be made in the laboratory, Indiana University Bloomington scientists report. ”The synthesis requires only seven steps,” said organic chemist P. Andrew Evans, who led the research. ”It should be quite trivial to scale this up to the production of large quantities.” Gaur acid is a natural skin secretion of the gaur, an Asian wild ox. Preliminary evidence suggests that this chemical discourages the landing and feeding of Aedes aegypti, a common mosquito that carries and transmits the yellow fever virus in some parts of the world.

Send in the rescue rats

Rats equipped with radios that transmit their brainwaves could soon be helping to locate earthquake survivors buried in the wreckage of collapsed buildings. Rats have an exquisitely sensitive sense of smell and can crawl just about anywhere. This combination make them ideal candidates for sniffing out buried survivors. For that the animals need to be taught to home in on people, and they must also signal their position to rescuers on the surface.

A glass of red wine a day may keep prostate cancer away

Drinking a glass of red wine a day may cut a man’s risk of prostate cancer in half, and the protective effect appears to be strongest against the most aggressive forms of the disease, according to a new study. ”We found that men who consumed four or more glasses of red wine per week reduced their risk of prostate cancer by 50 percent. Among men who consumed four or more 4-ounce glasses of red wine per week, we saw about a 60 percent lower incidence of the more aggressive types of prostate cancer.”

Wolverine takes a road trip

Scientists from the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society may have referred to the wolverine they were tracking as simply ”M304,” but ”Lance Armstrong” may be more descriptive as the young male embarked on a six-week journey that covered some 550 miles within three western states. The results of the study are published in the latest issue of the journal Northwest Science. The WCS scientists had equipped the wolverine with a Global Positioning System collar to better understand the habitat needs of this largest member of the weasel, weighing in at up to 55 pounds. After WCS released the collared animal, it immediately moved from Wyoming’s Grand Teton Mountains to the Portneuf Range in Idaho and then back again, covering some 256 miles in just 19 days.

Rover Missions Renewed as Mars Emerges from Behind Sun

As NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity resumed reliable contact with Earth, after a period when Mars passed nearly behind the sun, the space agency extended funding for an additional six months of rover operations, as long as they keep working. Both rovers successfully completed their primary three-month missions on the surface of Mars in April and have already added about five months of bonus exploration during the first extension of their missions. ”Spirit and Opportunity appear ready to continue their remarkable adventures,” said Andrew Dantzler, solar system division director at NASA Headquarters, Washington. ”We’re taking advantage of that good news by adding more support for the teamwork here on Earth that’s necessary for operating the rovers.”

Androgen loss may lead to Alzheimer’s

Like estrogen loss in older women, decreased levels of testosterone may put aging men at risk for Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study. The findings bolster sparse research on the adverse effects of age-related testosterone depletion in the brain and may lead to future development of hormone replacement therapies. ”Our findings strongly suggest that normal age-related testosterone depletion is one of the important changes that promote Alzheimer?s disease in men.”

Menopause: What makes some cope better than others?

Why it is that some women pass through menopause with barely a hot flush or mood swing to speak of whilst others feel they are stuck on a hormonal roller coaster? ”It’s all about resilience, ” says Associate Professor Lily Stojanovska of Victoria University. Stojanovska set out to investigate how women experience the menopausal transition and whether specifically, menopause was a central factor or if there were other aspects of their life that contributed to their sense of health and wellbeing. ”We really wanted to identify the mechanisms, or coping tools that made some women more resilient and able to positively adapt to a major life event such as menopause.”

What Genesis Solar Particles Can Tell Us

The recent crash of NASA’s Genesis space probe may have looked like bad news for scientists, but its cargo of particles captured from the sun should still yield useful information, according to Qing-Zhu Yin, a planetary scientist at UC Davis. Yin, who is not directly affiliated with the Genesis mission, studies the composition of meteorites to learn about the formation of the solar system. Like the Genesis capsule, meteorites have a hard landing on the Earth, but can still yield useful information, he said.