A malaria parasite gene called pfcrt, already confirmed as the culprit behind resistance to the drug chloroquine in the malaria species Plasmodium falciparum, may be responsible for resistance to several other antimalarial drugs as well. The discovery of pfcrt’s ”central role” in malarial drug resistance could ”help in the development of new therapeutic strategies that are effective against chloroquine-resistant parasites.”
Neurobiologists have pinpointed the molecular storehouse that supplies the neurotransmitter receptor proteins used for learning-related changes in the brain. They also found hints that the same storage compartments, called recycling endosomes, might be more general transporters for ‘memory molecules’ used to remodel the neuron to strengthen its connections with its neighbors.
Scientists have discovered a long-necked sea reptile with fangs that probably preyed on fish and squid in a shallow sea in present-day southeast China more than 230 million years ago. The creature’s relatively stiff, 1.7-meter-long neck (approximately five and a half feet) was almost twice as long as its trunk which measured less than one meter in length. The creature is the first report of a fully marine member of a diverse reptile group called the protorosaurs which are characterized by their long necks and elongated neck vertebrae. Comparison of this new creature to the famous long-necked reptiles and a fellow protorosaur from Europe and the Middle East called Tanystropheus offers new insights into protorosaur hunting strategies as well as their evolution and diversity during the Triassic Period.
Researchers have demonstrated a simple way to reduce the toxicity of water-soluble buckyballs by a factor of more than ten million. Buckyballs, whose chemical notation is C60, are hollow, soccerball-shaped molecules containing 60 carbon atoms. Their diameter is just one-billionth of a meter, or one nanometer, and their discovery is widely regarded as an early milestone in the field of nanotechnology. While buckyballs show great promise in applications as diverse as fuel cells, batteries, pharmaceuticals and coatings, some scientists and activists have raised concerns about their potential toxicity to humans and animals.
Glaciers in West Antarctica are shrinking at a rate substantially higher than observed in the 1990s. They are losing 60 percent more ice into the Amundsen Sea than they accumulate from inland snowfall. The study was conducted by a science team from NASA, U.S. universities and from the Centro de Estudios Cient?ficos in Chile. It is based on satellite data and comprehensive measurements made in 2002 by a science team aboard a Chilean P-3 aircraft equipped with NASA sensors. Science Express published the findings today.
Limited, low-dose infusions of a widely used anesthetic drug may relieve the often intolerable and debilitating pain of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), researchers have found. ”This pain disorder is very difficult to treat. Currently-available therapies, at best, oftentimes only make the pain bearable for many CRPS sufferers… In our retrospective study, some patients who underwent a low-dose infusion of ketamine experienced complete relief from their pain, suggesting that this therapy may be an option for some patients with intolerable CRPS.”
With a strong enough jolt — a 7.6 -magnitude earthquake — the seafloor under Catalina Island could be violently thrust upward, causing a tsunami along the Southern California coast, according to researchers at the University of Southern California. In a pair of journal articles published this month, researchers at the Viterbi School of Engineering described the tsunami hazard associated with offshore faults, including one that lies under Santa Catalina Island, just 25 miles off the Los Angeles coast.
Scientists have now officially witnessed the perfect cosmic storm. Thanks to the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton observatory, they watched a nearby head-on collision between two galaxy clusters. The clusters smashed together thousands of galaxies and trillions of stars in one of the most powerful events ever witnessed. Like a violent storm on Earth, the galaxy clusters collided like two high-pressure weather fronts and created hurricane-like conditions. The event tossed galaxies far from their paths and churned shock waves of 100-million-degree gas through intergalactic space.
A panel of top experts on election technology and administration has warned that the American system of voting is broadly vulnerable to error and abuse, and called for a crash-course of study and reform to make results more reliable and to promote better access by voters, especially those who have historically encountered serious impediments to exercising their right to vote.
Transplant surgeons have found that a new combination of drugs results in fewer incidences of rejection in liver transplant patients than do current treatments. Surgeons analyzed the results of 50 liver transplant procedures they performed between 2000 and 2002. To try to prevent or lessen the severity of rejection, the group used a monoclonal antibody, basiliximab, as part of a group of drugs that included tacrolimus, a standard anti-rejection agent, and low doses of steroids. Basiliximab, which ties up an important immune system cell (IL-2) receptor, has been used for kidney transplantation.
British scientists have discovered that the evolution of the Universe was much slower than previously thought. Dr. Andrew Bunker, who studied images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, will present the results at a NASA workshop today at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md.
The British team was the first to analyse Hubble’s Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) images, which provide mankind’s deepest optical view of the Universe. The team viewed the number of star-forming galaxies and found that there were far less than expected. The rate at which new stars were born was a lot slower than formerly thought.
It is well known that obesity has reached epidemic proportions. As waistbands expand, so do the number of health gurus heralding the benefits of portion control and exercise to keep obesity at bay. But with some studies indicating that the rate of obesity is greater in women than in men, could it be that women are at a disadvantage when it comes to these obesity avoidance tactics? Is it possible that females are predisposed to succumb to the temptation to overeat? And could exercise be a less effective method of appetite suppression in women than in men? Researchers at The Florida State University say the answer could be yes.
Microbiologists report the discovery of a new class of genetic elements, similar to retroviruses, that operate in bacteria, allowing them to diversify their proteins to bind to a large variety of receptors. The team discovered this fundamental mechanism in the most abundant life-forms on Earth: bacteriophages, the viruses that infect bacteria. ”A problem with antibiotics is that bacteria can mutate and become resistant to a particular antibiotic, while the antibiotic is static and cannot change… Bacteriophages are nature’s anti-microbials, and they are amazingly dynamic. If the bacterium mutates in an effort to evade, the bacteriophage can change its specificity using the mechanism we discovered, to kill the newly resistant bacterium.”
Large colonies of micro-organisms living under rocks have been discovered in the most hostile and extreme regions of the Arctic and Antarctic — giving new insights on survival of life on other planets. Reporting in this week’s Nature, scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and Scripps Institution of Oceanography reveal their surprise findings that rock-dwelling micro-organisms can photosynthesise and store carbon just as much as the plants, lichens and mosses that live above ground.