Pioneering research on sleeping sickness wins MERIAL Award for Parasitology
...flicted leads to an economic loss of more than one billion euro. Today, vaccination against trypanosoma, the parasite that causes sleeping sickness, is not at all effective, and the only remedy that works in all stages of infection is based on arsenic, which has severe side effects and can be deadly itself. ...Landmark study highlights complex genetic risk factors behind type 2 diabetes
...ome Trust Case Control Consortium looked at over 2 billion pieces of genetic data and 6,000 people with type 2 diabetes and 8,000 controls to track down these three genes. In addition, they confirmed the link between the disease and a further two previously-identified genes. The findings, published online...Story tips from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, April 2007
...cleaner air and saving consumers an estimated $3.6 billion over the expected 12-year product impact period. The patented technique, called Principal Components Regression Plus, overcomes problems inherent in other emissions predictive techniques that do not take into account real-world conditions. The ORNL s...Mosquito genes explain response to climate change
...ntains 900 million DNA base pairs. There are three billion base pairs in humans. As various genome maps are being completed, scientists now face the task of determining how genes interact and how they produce specific phenotypes (observable traits), which include photoperiodic response and dormancy. "Clim...Researcher focuses on pros, cons of antioxidants from fruits and vegetables
... field is still growing. In the U.S. more than $20 billion was spent on dietary supplements in 2005, said Tal...eterinary physiology and pharmacology. "Over $7 billion was spent on herbal dietary supplements in 2005." These supplements are plant-based, including grape...New methods and tools needed to measure exposure to airborne nanomaterials
... In 2005, nanotechnology was incorporated into $30 billion in manufactured goodsa number predicted to grow to $2.6 trillion in annual manufactured goods by 2014. Already, there are almost 400 manufacturer-identified nanotechnology-based consumer products on the marketranging from computer chips to automobile...Quantum secrets of photosynthesis revealed
... it into useful forms. "Nature has had about 2.7 billion years to perfect photosynthesis, so there are huge lessons that remain for us to learn, Engel said. The results were reporting in this latest paper, however, at least give us a new way to think about the design of future artificial photosynthesis sys...Macaque genome analysis will help find human disease genes
...tics. To analyze the genome, which consists of 2.9 billion DNA base pairs, the researchers used a dedicated computational biology cluster at the Cornell Theory Center, a supercomputer with 1,234 parallel processors. Finding clues to human evolution Siepel's group studied genes that were found to be com...Ancient coral reef tells the history of Kenya's soil erosion
...griculture and animal husbandry, placing about 2.6 billion people at risk of famine. "This is particularly worrisome in East and sub-Saharan Africa, where per capita food production has declined for the last half-century," Dunbar said. Coral bands For the study, Dunbar and his colleagues donned scuba g...3.2 billion-year-old surprise: Earth had strong magnetic field
...the Earths magnetic field was nearly as strong 3.2 billion years ago as it is today. The findings, which are ... the Earth already had a solid iron inner core 3.2 billion years ago, which is at the very limit of what theoretical models of the Earths formation could predi...Life-long learning -- nature provides natural inspiration for education
Three billion years of evolution cant be wrong and scientists are observing Natures own adaptations to find solutions to human problems. This relatively new field of Biology is called Biomimetics and Biologists have been investigating its application to fabric dev...Neurophysiologist explores the mysteries of the human brain
...ost complex object in the universe. With about 100 billion neurons, each of which makes perhaps 10,000 synapses, our incredible central processing unit is capable of roughly 1,000 trillion interconnections. What do scientists know about how this amazingly complex organ functions? Is it even possible to...National Academies host spring season of Distinctive Voices programs in Irvine, Calif.
..., and polio became nearly nonexistent. Still, 2.5 billion of the world's people have not benefited from such remarkable medical advances; their lives remain short and scarred by communicable diseases. Nassim Assefi, an internist specializing in women's health and global medicine, will discuss which countri...International risk research strategy and funding needed for nanotech safety
...the United States and other nations spend about $5 billion globally each year on nanotechnology research and ... Maynards analysis, despite investing more than $1 billion annually on nanotechnology research, U.S. government spending on highly relevant nanotech risk resea...Improving outcomes in premature births
...ving preterm infants are estimated to be almost $2 billion per year. In a 5-year, randomized, placebo-control...that it costs the Canadian health system almost $2 billion a year to take care of premature babies and their medical complications. Given the immeasurable soci...Salamanders suffer delayed effects of common herbicide
...alamander larvae to either 4, 40, or 400 parts per billion of atrazine until metamorphosis, the stage where t...e at 4 parts per billion, which is just 1 part per billion above the maximum allowable level in drinking water set by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency,"...San Diego stem cell consortium tops in state funding
...h California voters approved in 2004 to provide $3 billion in stem cell research. Grants are approved by the 29-member Independent Citizens Oversight Committee (ICOC), governing board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). In the first round of funding, SDCRM received $13.4 million ...30th anniversary of the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize
...galaxies have formed almost no new stars for seven billion years. This finding is at odds with theoretical expectations and has led to a number of new approaches in research. After working in the UK and the US for many years, Eric Bell now heads a DFG-funded Emmy Noether independent junior research group and...Life cycle assessment essential to nanotech commercial development
...g the market expected to grow dramaticallyfrom $30 billion in 2005 to $2.6 trillion in global manufactured goods using nanotechnology by 2014numerous uncertainties exist regarding possible impacts on the environment and human health, the international authors observe in Nanotechnology and Life Cycle Assessme...NJIT professor obtains patent to uncover trace elements of airborne pollutants
...ly a few molecules of pollutants in every part per billion of air or water molecules," Mitra said. "But even at these levels, these pollutants pose a threat to human and public health." "For example, we know that benzene, a by-product of automobile exhaust, causes cancer," Mitra said. "The organics from ...