New reactor puts hydrogen from renewable fuels within reach
...technology is poised to remove the major stumbling block to the "hydrogen economy": no free hydrogen exists, except what is made at high cost from fossil fuels. The work will be published in the Feb. 13 issue of Science . The researchers see an early use for their invention in remote areas, where the inst......mulates algal blooms that affect water quality and block sunlight from reaching underwater grasses. The water-quality criteria proposed by the Chesapeake Bay Program probably will not be met by the goal date of 2010 because of the lag time between implementing best management practices and the actual impro...Kidney injury's harmful effects on bones blocked in mice
...ney disease have found a treatment that appears to block the devastating effects kidney damage can have on bones. "We still have some mechanical and structural testing to do to prove that the skeletons of these mice are normal, but if this works out and we're able to apply it in humans, we could be on our ...JCI table of contents, February 2, 2004
...the formation of thrombi in the circulation, which block arteries and can cause heart attack and stroke. In... development of therapeutic strategies that aim to block TNF-alpha. TITLE: TNF-alpha is a critical negative regulator of type 1 immune activation during intr...Two-drug approach might shorten painful labor, reduce Caesarean sections
... used in the study were treated with antibodies to block relaxin's actions in the late stages of pregnancy to reflect the lack of hormonal activity of the human female. "Using relaxin and RU 486 offers promise of not only enabling delivery that is rapid and safe, but also relatively natural," Sherwood said...Lock to food-borne pathogen pathway may be key to vaccine
...ase pathway that leads to illness, then we need to block them," Bhunia said. "Our focus now is to determine when and under what conditions the bacterium moves from intestinal cells into the system. "If we understand the mechanism of how bacteria interacts with cells before causing damage and producing syst...Death-defying approach devised by Penn scientists to prevent cell apoptosis
... of Iowa have identified a biochemical strategy to block ROS - which effectively prevents cellular damage a...f the amino acid methionine, an important building block of proteins." After using gene-transfer technology to insert extra MRSA into cells, the researche...Pew report finds GM insects may offer benefits, but clear regulatory oversight is lacking
... regulatory policies will be an important building block in the development of international policies regarding GM insects, domestic stagnation impedes development on an international level. "Clarity from U.S. regulators would benefit both the scientific community and the public at large," conclud...Small-molecule inhibitors of anthrax lethal factor identified
Scientists have identified several compounds that block the activity of a key anthrax protein called lethal factor (LF)--an important first step in developing therapeutics to counter the disease. Anthrax, a disease caused by the spore-forming bacterium Bacillus anthracis, is most deadly when exposure occu...Rutgers scientists discover protein in brain affects learning and memory
...n tubulin, a protein that is a structural building block of the dendrite skeleton," explained Firestein. "If you just take our purified protein and mix it with tubulin in a test tube, the cypin on its own will actually cause these skeletal structures to grow." A paper presenting this research will appear ...Researchers find an association between alcohol dependence and the GABAA receptor gene GABRG3
...dation, and withdrawal signs, while chemicals that block GABAA receptors lessen these effects." For this study, Dick and her colleagues decided to focus on GABAA receptor genes on chromosome 15q because of earlier findings from the multi-site Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA) "sug...If we are what we eat, some lake fish are made of maple leaves
...rganic matter that originates on shore. A building block of life, organic carbon is essential to aquaticfood webs. In lakes, aquatic plants produce organic carbon by harnessing the sun's energy (photosynthesis); some of this carbon supports the growth of fish and invertebrate populations. Scientists have l...Transgenic mosquitoes are less fertile than their counterparts in nature
...to tightly link "effector genes" to them that will block the mosquito's ability to carry the disease. "Theoretically, once released into the wild they should compete with disease carrying mosquitoes and reduce the incidence of malaria, dengue fever, and other mosquito-borne maladies," Atkinson said....Are fish made of maple leaves?
...ter that originates on the shoreline. A building block of life, organic carbon is essential to aquatic food webs. In lakes, aquatic plants produce organic carbon by harnessing the sun's energy (photosynthesis); some of this carbon supports the growth of fish and invertebrate populations. Scientists have ...Wound-healing genes influence cancer progression, say Stanford researchers
... cancer's spread. "There are drugs coming out that block blood vessel growth, so perhaps those drugs should be targeted to this population of patients," Chang said. Additional Stanford researchers who contributed to this work include postdoctoral scholars Ruchira Sood, PhD, and Jen-Tsan Chi, MD, PhD; Ash ...Gene-disabling techniques simplified by Stanford team
...mary interest of Blau's lab. The students hoped to block protein production for each gene to find out which ones play a critical role in normal stem cell function. "I told them that creating individual siRNAs to each gene was too expensive," said Blau. Undaunted, the students came up with a protocol for ma...Research reveals brain has biological mechanism to block unwanted memories
... biological mechanism exists in the human brain to block unwanted memories. The findings, to be published J...eudian idea is that even though someone is able to block an unpleasant memory, Gabrieli said, "it's lurking in them somewhere, and it has consequences even t...Winter weather turns on flowering gene
... of the mustard family. The genes work together to block blossoming. As they observed, one of these genes i... proteins over which DNA is wrapped. These changes block the flower-suppressing gene, switching the plant from a fixed state where it won't flower to a fixed...Vegetables that prevent may ultimately cure some cancers
.... They looked at the mechanism - how the compounds block cancer cell growth - and found that they target PPAR gamma, a protein that is highly active in fat cells. However, this same PPAR gamma is over-expressed in many tumors and tumor cells and is a potential target for new drugs, he said. Safe's lab ch...Endurance of plants under quartz rocks possible model for life on early Earth, Mars
...time when there was no atmospheric ozone shield to block harmful solar ultraviolet radiation and no nitrogen-rich topsoil covering the ground. The lack of soil nitrogen provided no obstacle for the plant colonies living under the quartz rocks. Hofmockel, another of Schlesinger's graduate students, found th...