Virginia Tech's smelly 'corpse plant' due to bloom Aug. 4
...n the web at http://www.hort.vt.edu/VTHG/ if you want to see it on the date it blooms. Although a blooming Amorphophallus titanum, or titan arum, is rarely seen, Virginia Tech's first bloomed in August 2002, drawing crowds who braved the odor and the football traffic to see it. The smelly plant is rare ...New technique helps scientists reveal interactions between genes and drugs
...uthor of the study and instructor of medicine. "We want to find ways to look at new endpoints -- for example, how thoroughly does a drug hit its target of interest, or how much can it slow growth or other cellular processes? Then we'll be able to look at genetic effects on medications for a range of disor...Ants protect plants better when jacked up on nectar
...thday cake or soda pop, you're eventually going to want something of substance," said team leader Joshua A. Ness, an ecologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson. The same is true of ants, he said. And the most convenient protein packets for ants on plants are often insects that are there to munch on...Ecologist calls for creation of an international panel to assess human behavior
...alues are really leading to the sort of world they want for their descendents. Americans, for example, must ask themselves if their 'way of life' should really be, as the first President Bush said, 'not negotiable.' And they need to discuss possible lifestyle changes in a framework not just of what is pos...Ancient life form may help create newest technologies
...ng organism does the work and creates the order we want at the nano level, as the diatom builds its shell wall," Rorrer said. "For use as electronic materials, the germanium oxides need to be in a certain form and order, and it appears the diatoms may produce that for us." Instead of using lasers, high t...New UCF researchers, college will help fight Alzheimer's disease, cancer
...of the Burnett College of Biomedical Sciences. "We want to build a nationally recognized biomedical research and education enterprise at UCF." Neuroscientist Kiminobu Sugaya, who arrived at UCF in the spring, hopes his research will show that taking stem cells from bone marrow in a patient's hip and injec...Forest fire sensor inspired by nature
...om a distance of 80 kilometres. The biologists now want to perform more tests on their little model to determine the limits of this new method of measurement. This "fire beetle" loves burnt wood: immediately after woodland blazes the females fly in from far and wide, climb up the trees and lay their eggs ...Satellites are tracing Europe's forest fire scars
...th and manmade changes within affected areas. "We want to link up PROMETHEE with this burn scar mapping product from Risk-EOS to have a good historical basis of information," Raffalli added. "The benefit is that it makes possible a much more effective protection of the forest." Characterising the sites ......, McNitt-Gray works with some of USC's coaches who want to integrate the latest scientific findings into their athletics training programs. Right now she's working with Mick Haley and Paula Weishoff, who are training the USC women's volleyball team. The work seems to be paying off: the team scored two co...Geologists discover water cuts through rock at surprising speed
...ated gorges all over the world," Bierman said. "We want to work next on other East Coast rivers and streams to see how similar their histories are to the two major rivers sampled so far, the Susquehanna and Potomac." ...Joslin Diabetes Center releases new low impact exercise video
...Physical limitations often prevent many people who want to improve their fitness from doing so, but these limitations do not need to stop them from exercising. In fact for people with physical limitations, having a regular exercise routine is very important since they otherwise tend to lead sedentary liv...New framework for biodiversity conservation
...f it is possible to conserve exactly the sites you want and do it immediately - a conservation blueprint makes sense," says Andelman. "In marine environments, where there is public ownership, this may be possible, but this situation is rare on land. Conservation has to be staged over time, and it is di...Drug prevents chemotherapy-induced hearing loss, study finds
...our hours after chemotherapy. "The reason we don't want to give (NAC) right before the chemotherapy is it's going to take the chemotherapeutic effect away from the tumor," Muldoon said. "We'd really like to protect hearing without protecting the tumor." NAC also appears to protect against other side effec...Protective mechanism exploited by tumors may provide new cancer treatment
... that is related to the kinds of patients we would want to treat. This brings us closer to being able to approach the FDA suggesting that IDO inhibitor drugs would be appropriate to use in patients." The National Institutes of Health will do toxicity studies of the IDO inhibitor as well as other studies n...Cell study leap forward for tissue engineering, diseases
... for tissue engineering, for researchers who might want to control the shape of a tissue or organ growing in vitro. Winklbauer stresses that there is still much more work to be done to link the findings to formulating a cure for diseases. "Identifying this common mechanism is the first piece of the puzzl...Acamprosate: potential medication for treating alcoholism
...when people are drinking, and should not make them want to drink more or behave differently over and above...when people are drinking, and should not make them want to drink more or behave differently over and above the effects of alcohol alone. "To our knowle...Leading scientists design new framework for biodiversity conservation
...f it is possible to conserve exactly the sites you want and do it immediately - a conservation blueprint makes sense," says Andelman. "In marine environments, where there is public ownership, this may be possible, but this situation is rare on land. Conservation has to be staged over time, and it is di...New study in moths shows insects not entirely ruled by instinct
... experience," Daly said. "Ultimately, if we really want to understand how an animal changes its behavior, we have to go into the brain," he continued....Researchers discover how worms' noses sense oxygen
...very low concentrations of NO?" Marletta said. "We want to find out how nature engineered a guanylate cyclase protein that doesn't bind oxygen but still binds NO." "It's surprising," he added, "that 225 years after Lavoisier discovered oxygen, we're still finding out how organisms sense and use it, and li...Experiment station researcher looking for missing links in corn
...protein quality with a competitive yield grain. We want it to be a value-added trait that perhaps has good...llness or death in livestock that consume it. "We want to have something that is high quality, but yet have low-risk to aflatoxin and it is adapted to our ...