October 19, 2006, 9:30 PM CT
How Pathogens Spread In Human Body
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have discovered a new, more accurate, method of mapping how bacteria spread within the body, a breakthrough that could lead to more effective treatments and prevention of certain bacterial infections.
Dr. Pietro Mastroeni, Professor Duncan Maskell at the Centre for Veterinary Science, and their teams have pioneered the integration of mathematical models with observational data to predict the spread of individual bacteria within the human body. Their findings appear in the recent issue of PLoS Biology.
The work analyses the spread and distribution of Salmonella in the body, which is a bacterium that causes typhoid fever and food borne gastroenteritis in humans and animals, with severe medical and veterinary consequences and threats for the food industry. The work is of broad significance as these novel research approaches are applicable to a multitude of pathogenic microorganisms.
These studies indicate that individual bacteria and their progenies cleverly escape from host cells and distribute to new sites of the body, continuously staying one step ahead of the immune response. The type of spread varies between different bacteria, thus posing challenges for the rational treatment or prevention of these infections.........
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October 19, 2006, 9:15 PM CT
Connection Between Sound And A Reward
If you've ever wondered how you recognize your mother's voice without seeing her face or how you discern your cell phone's ring in a crowded room, researchers may have another piece of the answer.
Their work indicates that once you figure out your mother's voice is a good thing - most days - fairly significant changes occur in the sensory cortex, the part of the brain that responds to sound.
"When something starts to predict a good outcome is going to happen, the sensory part of the brain that responds to those events starts to respond more strongly, making it easier for the brain to cause a behavioral response," says Dr. David T. Blake, neuroscientist at the Medical College of Georgia and lead author on a study in the Oct. 19 issue of Neuron.
By monitoring the action potentials of about a dozen key neurons in monkey test subjects, researchers found neuronal responsiveness increases dramatically after just a few training sessions.
These neuronal fireworks were short-lived, replaced by a rewiring of the brain that shows the animal has learned, Dr. Blake says.
In the few monkeys that initially didn't make the connection that a change in pitch in a series of sounds meant they were getting a juice reward, no brain changes occurred.........
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October 18, 2006, 8:46 PM CT
Meet The Earliest Baby Girl Ever
The skull of the Australopithecus afarensis child.
3.3 million years ago, a three year old girl died in present day Ethiopia, in an area called Dikika. Though a baby, she is providing us with unique accounts of our past as a grand mother would! Her completeness, antiquity, and age at death combined make this find unprecedented in the history of paleoanthropology and open many new research avenues to investigate into the infancy of early human ancestors. The extraordinary discovery reported this week in the scientific journal Nature, was found in north-eastern Ethiopia, by a paleoanthropological research team led by Zeresenay Alemseged of the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany. The scientific significance of the new find is multifold, contributing substantially to our comprehension of the morphology, body plan, behavior, movement and developmental patterns of our early ancestors. After full cleaning and preparation of the fossil we will be able to reconstruct, for the first time, much of an entire body of a 3 year-old Australopithecus afarensis child, which will resolve many pending questions on early human evolution.
The new find represents a skeleton of the earliest and most complete juvenile human ancestor ever found that lived 150,000 years before Lucy. She was only three years old when she died and belongs to Australopithecus afarensis (the Lucy species) and was found in an area called Dikika, in Ethiopia, by a paleoanthropological team, the DRP (Dikika Research Project) led by Dr. Zeresenay Alesmeged of the Max Planck Institute. The DRP is an international and multidisciplinary project including several researchers with diverse areas of expertise, and about 40 assistants conducting field research in Ethiopia every year. The first piece of the baby was found on 10, December, 2000, but recovering the partial skeleton required intensive searching and sifting over four successive field seasons between 2000 and 2004.........
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October 18, 2006, 8:36 PM CT
More Currency Than Gold On Columbus's Travels
Landing of Columbus
The humble device that prevents shoelaces from fraying was deemed to be worth more than gold by the indigenous Cubans who traded with Columbus's fleet, a study led by UCL (University College London) archaeologists has discovered.
Reporting in next month's edition of the Journal of Archaeological Science, the researchers analysed burial material - such as beads and pendants - excavated from one of the largest burial sites in northeast Cuba. To their surprise very little gold was discovered, despite its relative abundance in the region. Instead, the most common artefacts were small metal tubes made of brass that were often threaded into necklaces.
While brass making was widespread in medieval and earlier Europe, no evidence exists of brass production in America by indigenous people in the Caribbean - known as Taíno - before the arrival of the Europeans. Using microstructural and chemical analysis, the researchers were able to prove the brass originated in Germany.
Columbus's 1492 Spanish fleet was the first European presence to arrive in Cuba and radiocarbon dating shows remains from the burial site at El Chorro de Maíta, Cuba date from a few decades after the conquest. Columbus's diaries also mention the trade of lacetags.
A review of relevant literature and paintings from European sources revealed that the most likely origin of the tubes was not beads but strung together lacetags, or aglets, from European clothing. From the 15th century onwards, these were used to prevent the ends of laces from fraying, and to ease threading in the points for fastening clothes such as doublets and hose. Examples of such usage include a 1636 portrait of William Style of Langley (Tate Gallery, London), which depicts the use of aglets in his waist to secure his trousers through his jacket. Original lacetags excavated from across London that date back to the 13th century can also be found in the Museum of London's Archaeological Archive.........
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October 17, 2006, 10:01 PM CT
First New Mammal Found In Europe In 100 Years
Meet the Cypriot mouse-the first new mammal species to be discovered in Europe in more than a century.
The researchers who announced the find yesterday think the previously unknown creature is confined to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus (map of Cyprus).
The mouse differs from other European mice by having a bigger head, bigger ears, bigger eyes, and bigger teeth, says its discoverer, French zoologist Thomas Cucchi.
Cucchi, who is based at Durham University in England, noticed the small gray rodent while studying mice teeth from the Stone Age and comparing them with those of species still living on Cyprus. Genetic tests later confirmed it as a new species, now named Mus cypriacus.........
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October 16, 2006, 9:23 PM CT
Dietitian Offers Substitutes For Spinach's Nutrients
While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has lifted the ban on fresh spinach and the produce is back on a number of grocery store shelves and restaurant plates, some consumers may not be so eager to return to eating the leafy greens that left at least three people dead and 199 others sickened across 26 states after an E coli O157:H7 outbreak.
A dietitian at Washington University in St. Louis offers advice on finding new sources of the nutrients offered by spinach for those who are avoiding the leaf vegetable because they are still concerned about its safety.
"If you're wary of fresh spinach, there are other foods out there to take its place," says Connie Diekman, R.D., director of University Nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis. "It's important to remember that if spinach was a staple of your diet and you're just not ready to eat it again, be sure to replace those nutrients you're missing with something equally nutritious. A variety of foods can meet the nutrient needs of spinach and that variety can spice your menus and meet your needs too!".
Since the FDA issued its warning on Sept. 14 of an E coli O157:H7 outbreak citing fresh bagged spinach as the main suspect, a number of spinach lovers have had to improvise, and Diekman admits it's hard to beat the nutrients in spinach.........
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October 16, 2006, 9:14 PM CT
Audi Q7 Gets a 5 Star Security Rating
The Audi Q7 has been tested as on of the safest car on road by the US National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration. Audi Q7 got a 5 Star Rating for driver and passenger protection frontal crash tests and it also received the same rating in the side impact tests done for the front and rear passenger protection.
Audi of America's Executive Vice President Johan de Nysschen commented that Audi has always demonstrated a strong commitment to passenger security and will continue doing the same.
Well done Audi Q7.........
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October 16, 2006, 9:10 PM CT
Apricot And Cashew Nut Leftovers
I was surfing this morning and this article got my attention.
Apricot and cashew nut by-products can be used as renewable feedstocks to make nanomaterials, say scientists in the US.
George John and Praveen Kumar Vemula from the City College of the City University of New York, US, have used plant-derived resources to make a variety of soft nanomaterials, which are useful for a wide variety of applications.
John started with amygdalin, a by-product from the apricot industry and used an enzyme catalysis route to make amphiphiles - molecules with both hydrophilic and hydrophobic parts - that have very effective gelation properties, even before purification. John used the hydrogel formed from these amphiphiles as a successful drug delivery vehicle for curcumin, a well-known drug with anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties. 'Enzyme catalysis was used as a tool to make and break the hydrogels, which triggered controlled drug delivery,' said John.........
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October 16, 2006, 8:59 PM CT
Fraudsters And Serial Killers Have Similar Profiles
Eve Paquette
Lack of empathy, impulsive behaviour, pathological lying - these unsavoury traits are shared by serial killers and perpetrators of fraud. "Fraud is a crime that does not involve physical violence, so the effects are less tangible than the effects of violent acts," explains criminologist Ève Paquette, who is currently writing a master's thesis on 40 fraudsters incarcerated in Quebec institutions. "But we've observed astonishing similarities between the personalities of serial murderers and those who commit economic crimes".
Psychopathic personalities, which account for about 1% of the population but 15 to 25% of inmates in Canadian prisons, can be identified through testing. In October, Paquette, who divides her time between studies in the School of Criminology and the strategic intervention team in the School of Educational Psychology, gave a presentation on evaluating psychopathic traits in the business world at an international conference on economic crime held in the Laurentians.
The term "psychopathic syndrome," coined by Hervey Cleckley in 1976, applies to a person who appears to be normal but makes others believe in his pseudo-intentions and pseudo-remorse; he gives real answers like a normal person, but is actually following a plan that only he understands. "His mask allows him to simulate a normal person, but his behaviours reflect an antisocial attitude that is dangerous to others," adds Paquette.........
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October 16, 2006, 8:29 PM CT
When J.Lo Gyrates With Another Man
A husband would surely be green with envy, when he sees his wife getting raunchy with another man, even if it's solely for the cameras.
And Marc Anthony can certainly not be blamed for leaving after two minutes of singer/actress wife Jennifer Lopez's video shoot with raunchy rapper LL Cool J.
As per the sexy hip-hop hunk, Anthony apparently couldn't tolerate the shoot of the racy sequence, and hence did a runner right after he started to get a groove on with his missus for the video "Control Myself".
"We had a lot of chemistry going on. So when Jen's husband came on set - he was only there for a minute before he left again," The Mirror quoted the 38-year-old stud, as saying.
ANO-HTTabloid.com.........
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