How city dwellers and living things put the green into our urban open spaces
...the ecology of the UK's urban areas has gained the kind of conservation significance once reserved for rural and sparsely populated regions. Scientists now recognise that cities sustain important 'communities' of plants and animals drawn together from many different routes and places. Urban wildlife group...'Lighter than air' breathing more than doubles COPD patients' exercise endurance
...ing difficulties, which keeps them from almost any kind of exercise, especially in advanced stages. So maybe "lighter than air" air would be easier to breath, reduce shortness of breath and perhaps even allow them to do some exercise with all of its physical and mental benefits. A group of Italian researc...Patients' own stem cells used to cure incontinence
...s. The findings of the first clinical study of its kind were presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). "Urinary incontinence is a major problem for women, and for an increasing number of men," said Ferdinand Frauscher, M.D., associate professor of radiolog...New study by UGA researcher shows that Salmonella uses hydrogen as an energy source
...bon monoxide," said Maier. "Humans don't make this kind of metal cluster in cells, and so it's an excellent target for therapeutic intervention. Also, making nickel unavailable to the cells by use of metal sequestering agents would be expected to stop the hydrogen using reactions required for growth of th...New pheromone creates buzz about the clout of older bees
...ng ones can mature too quickly," Huang said. "It's kind of the same thing as with people, you need the eld...said, led them to identify ethyl oleate as another kind of pheromone called primer pheromone. Forager bees load up on ethyl oleate when they're buzzing ab...Fussy Baby Network answers cries for help in community
... be soothed; but some have many more bouts of this kind of crying. The cause of colic is not known. For a relatively small group, crying may be caused by allergies or digestive problems such as reflux. Most recently, in the October issue of Pediatrics, a study shows smoking during or after pregnancy could...Computer analysis shows scientists could reconstruct the genome of the mammalian common ancestor
...ery exciting new way to think about our origins, a kind of DNA-based archaeology to understand how we came to be," said Haussler, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator and director of UCSC's Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering. Haussler and Mathieu Blanchette, a postdoctoral r...Racial disparities noted in immune system genes
... were more common among African Americans. This is kind of a double whammy." Researchers examined the race-specific distribution of allelic variants in cytokine genes known to promote inflammation. Chromosomes and genes occur in alternative forms, and these alternative genetic forms are called alleles. Cy...How the brain is wired for faces
...to recognize faces--there is controversy over what kind of processing the area is doing. Now, Galit Yovel and Nancy Kanwisher have tackled two central questions with one set of experiments: the nature of processing that occurs in the FFA and whether the FFA is "domain specific," that is, exclusively invol...Common lineage suggested for viruses that infect hosts from all three domains of life
...s. Founded in 1892 as the first institution of its kind in the nation, The Wistar Institute today is a National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center -- one of only eight focused on basic research. Discoveries at Wistar have led to the development of vaccines for such diseases as rabies and rubella, t...Purdue research offers hope for canine, human spinal injuries
... "Imagine children blowing bubbles with wands, the kind with a small round hole at the end," Borgens said. "The polymer acts like a soap film that covers the hole and draws the water away. In the PEG-sealed membrane, the fatty oils that form the center of the membrane can mix again, free of the water that...Read your shampoo's label: Study finds common ingredient stunts developing neurons of rats
...o neurotoxicity studies in humans to indicate what kind and at what level exposure is safe. I realize it's a big leap to suggest there may be a parallel between environmental exposure and the noticeably higher rates of diagnosed childhood developmental disabilities, but I would caution that based on our d...Less fat makes better process for designing new drugs
...slab of intertwined lipid and water molecules -- a kind of wet, fatty sponge that soaks up thousands of proteins at once and draws them together into crystals. The sponge is full of watery pores that offer surface area for chemical reactions. One gram of the stuff has more surface area than a footba...New weapon in germ warfare: 'Jamming' bacteria signals stops cholera
... quorum sensing to detect when enough of their own kind is present and then change their behaviour and attach themselves to a surface on a host or in the environment. The seaweed, a red algal species found at a UNSW marine research site in Sydney's Botany Bay, produces the compounds to prevent ...Stanford biologist working to restore native forests to Hawaii
...search. "She found that young koa plantations, the kind someone growing for profit would have, are really good habitat for the 'Akiapola'au," Daily said. "Usually you hear that you need old growth to be biologically valuable, as in the case of the spotted owl." Multiple approaches Daily plans to tackle ...Study by US, Hebrew University scientists sheds light on how bacteria persist despite antibiotics
...researchers discovered that persistent cells are a kind of reserve population that is constantly being produced within bacteria, regardless of whether the bacteria are being attacked by an antibiotic or not. These cells are slow-growing and apparently because of their "retarded" or "non-mature" state ar...Researchers show how botulism toxin ensnares its target
... the active site of the enzyme itself." While this kind of drug could prove useful in treating late-stage botulism or tetanus, noted Brunger, effective antibiotics and vaccines already exist to treat the diseases in most cases, if they are caught early. In further studies, the researchers will extend thei...A genetic difference at the opiate receptor gene affects a person's response to alcohol
...r the development of alcoholism could be used as a kind of genetic counseling to help individuals at risk. Persons carrying a risk gene, if they are made aware of it, may be able to alter their drinking and reduce their risk of developing alcoholism."...New effects of an antihistaminic against cerebral injury
...ims of a slow programmed death called apoptosis, a kind of "suicide" at a cellular level. The researchers observed that ranitidine acts preferentially on the neurons that are in the process of apopotosis, and conclusively reduces the percentage of cells that die. Even when treatment is initiated six hour...Desires for fatty foods and alcohol share a chemical trigger
...iologist at Rockefeller University. Galanin, a kind of small protein fragment called a neuropeptide, had previously been shown to play a role in appetite, particularly for fatty foods. Consumption of fat causes a part of the brain called the hypothalamus to produce more galanin, which, in turn, increa...