NIH awards $20.7 million to make smallpox vaccine safer
...s, smallpox was wiped out around the world by 1980 due to an aggressive vaccination program. Routine vaccinations in the United States ended in 1972. Although the only known stocks of the smallpox virus are contained in laboratories in the United States and Russia, government and health officials fear th...Protein may reduce susceptibility to autoimmune disease
...aught us that in many cases the disease may not be due to big changes in the affected genes but instead due to subtle differences in the amount of alternate forms of the gene that are expressed." Lalitha Vij...Mouse study yields clue to why liver is less prone to rejection, say Pitt researchers
.... Why this is, according to the Pitt study, may be due to the fact that they express lower amounts of a certain molecule that serves as a switch for the maturation process. Reporting in a plenary session at the American Transplant Congress, the joint scientific meeting of the American Society of Transpla...JCI table of contents, 17 May 2004
...as the mice age, and disease manifests as diabetes due to lack of insulin. Cell cycle assays showed increased proliferation and apoptosis in the double-knockout mouse cells. These results suggest the involvement of E2F1 and E2F2 in the maintenance of differentiated cells in the pancreas and support their...Labs-on-a-chip to detect milk contamination
...ost poisonous substance known. "Although outbreaks due to contaminated food are rare, the infection can have a profound impact on areas in which the outbreaks occur," Beebe and his colleagues reported. "Due to its high specific toxicity, botulinum toxin is also considered a potential agent for use in bio...Tips from the Journals of the American Society for Microbiology
...cern associated with UV radiation is elevated cost due to extended operation periods. In the study, coliphage MS-2, considered to be a practical surrogate for pathogenic viruses, was exposed to silver individually and then combined with UV radiation. Results showed that when exposed to only silver for t...Embryonic stem cell - based tissue engineering may help repair damaged heart muscle
...venly into this meshwork, which is a liquid. Then, due to its liquid nature, we are able to inject it into the heart through an endoscope, with much less surgical trauma than if we had to open the chest to reach the heart. This liquid tissue solidifies at body temperature. "We let Nature integrate this t...Researchers find no link between alcohol consumption during pregnancy and asthma during childhood
...ns. In the year 2000, nearly 5,000 Americans died due to asthma-related problems. Researchers in the May issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research investigate if those children born to mothers who consume alcohol during pregnancy have a greater risk of hospitalization for asthma. Their f...Nonalcoholic beverages may impart cardiovascular benefits without the negative effects of alcohol
...has shown that alcohol's protective effects may be due to more than its ethanol content. New research exa...has shown that alcohol's protective effects may be due to not only its ethanol content, but also its nonalcoholic constituents. For example, moderate drin...Biologists uncover genetic links to broad range of human disorders resulting from cilia dysfunctions
...o the throat, and the vision problems or blindness due to defective cilia in the eye's photoreceptors. In recent years, that list has grown as medical researchers discovered that many human genetic ailments affecting multiple organs have their origin in the absence and dysfunction of cilia. These includ...Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide promotes algal growth
...f this effect is included, productivity may double due to a doubling of the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. In practice productivity increase will usually be less, however, under nutrient rich conditions, doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide may result in a productivity increase up to 40% in...Study examines future of species extinction, conservation
... to an environmental condition can shift over time due to yet another force - changes in food-web interac...llenging to determine what species may vanish next due to the forces of extinction. This leads them to suggest a more holistic approach to conservation. "W...Soybeans may reduce risk of colon cancer
... Based on our results, some of this benefit may be due to a group of molecules known as sphingolipids," said Merrill. Soy GlcCer is just one of the many types of sphingolipids found in plants and animals. Merrill and colleagues have already shown that milk sphingolipids can suppress tumor formation. But ...Dramatic decline of California native frog linked to introduced trout in mountain lakes
...delay in the decline of adult frogs is most likely due to the fact that they probably live 10 years or more, so the loss of tadpoles would not produce a dramatic drop in adult frogs for a decade or longer. As part of his study, he and UC Berkeley undergraduate volunteers removed trout from five lakes and...Muscle-derived cells and gene therapy may cure for post-prostatectomy erectile dysfunction
... who undergo radical prostatectomies experience ED due to damage to the nerves essential to achieving and...tage of patients experience ED after the procedure due to injury to the peripheral nerves, including the cavernous nerve, located close to the prostate gla...Chronic respiratory symptoms prevalent among Alaska natives
..., therefore, we do not think these differences are due to lack of access to health care or differences in diagnostic practices. Rather, we suspect there may be differences in environmental conditions that either increase risk or are protective for the children, and that these conditions vary within the ...Lewis and Clark data show a different Missouri River
...ead out some 720 yards. These changes are due to modifications of the river by the Army Corps of Engineers, say Robert Criss, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, and Washington University undergraduate student Bethany Ehlmann...Sediments in many Central Valley streams contain toxic levels of pyrethroid pesticides
...nt samples are toxic to a standard testing species due to a class of pesticides no one has tested for bef...ed regulation of the spraying of organophosphates, due to health threats to farm workers and increased toxic runoff from fields. According to Weston, pyret...Scripps scientists look deep inside sharks and their high-performance swimming system
...s of lamnid sharks had not been successful, mainly due to the extreme difficulty in studying such large, elusive and dangerous predators. "As apex predators in the ocean these sharks are important and becoming rare," said study coauthor Robert Shadwick, a professor in the Marine Biology Research Division......different angles. A follow-on mission, Proba-2, is due to be deployed by ESA around 2005. Proba's unique capabilities also makes it a useful resource in the development of the proposed hyper-spectral and multi-angular Surface Processes and Ecosystem Changes Through Response Analysis (SPECTRA) mission, a...