NASA Spacecraft Gets Boost From Jupiter For Pluto Encounter February 28, 2007
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft successfully completed a flyby of Jupiter early this morning (Feb. 28), using the massive planet’s gravity to pick up speed for its 3-billion mile voyage to Pluto and the unexplored Kuiper Belt region beyond.
‘Sticky’ Proteins Fuse Adult Stem Cells To Cardiac Muscle, Repairing Hearts
Cardiologists are increasingly using adult stem cells in clinical trials to repair hearts following heart attacks, but no one has understood how the therapy actually works. Now, in animal experiments, researchers at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have deconstructed the process, describing how the stem cells fuse with heart muscle cells to create new cells that repopulate the ailing organ.
Worldwide Research Network Needed To Really Understand What Is Changing In The Arctic
An Ohio State University geologist has outlined a new plan to oceanographers that would consolidate much of the world’s studies on the Arctic region into a global observation network. "This is basically a plan to better understand how the Arctic is changing, but doing it in a new systematic, international and "pan-Arctic’ way," explained Berry Lyons, professor in the School of Earth Sciences and director of the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University.
Toward Genetically Guided Cancer Treatment: Gene Expression Test Reveals Critical …
Two critical characteristics of breast cancer that are important to treatment can be identified by measuring gene expression in the tumor, a research team led by scientists at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reports in Lancet Oncology online.
Cellulosic Ethanol: Fuel Of The Future?
In his 2007 State of the Union address, President Bush outlined his plan to reduce the nation’s dependency on foreign oil by requiring the production of 35 billion gallons a year of renewable and alternative fuels by 2017. One way to reach this goal is offered by Chris Somerville, professor of biological sciences at Stanford University and director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Plant Biology, who advocates increasing the production of cellulosic ethanol.
Ancient Retrovirus Is Resurrected
Retroviruses have been around longer than humanity itself. In fact, the best-known family member, HIV, is a relative youngster, with its first known human infections occurring sometime in the mid-20th century. But although many retroviruses went extinct hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago, researchers studying the pathogens don’t use the traditional tools of paleontologists: They need look only as far as our own DNA.
Early Europeans Unable To Stomach Milk
The first direct evidence that early Europeans were unable to digest milk has been found by scientists at UCL (University College London) and Mainz University.
Scientists Develop New Procedure To Differentiate Human Embryonic Stem Cells
Molecular scientists at the UT Health Science Center at Houston have developed a new procedure for the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells, with which they have created the first transplantable source of lung epithelial cells. Findings are published by Dr. Rick Wetsel and others in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Smoking May Be A Risk Factor For Tuberculosis
Smoking appears to increase the risk of becoming infected with tuberculosis and the risk for the development of active disease upon infection, according to an analysis of previously published research in the Feb. 26 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Metro Boston’s Flora And Fauna Reveal Global Warming’s Effect
In a Lowell, Mass., cemetery on Memorial Day 1868, a photograph captured mourners in heavy winter clothing gathered under leafless trees near the graves of two brothers killed in the Civil War. At the same spot on Memorial Day 2005, cemetery visitors wore light spring clothes. The trees were in full flower. These photographs are a close-to-home reminder of the effects of global warming, said Boston University biology professor Richard Primack and BU graduate student Abraham Miller-Rushing.
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