October 12, 2006, 5:11 AM CT
Potential New Drug For Multiple Sclerosis
Virginia Commonwealth University scientists have identified a unique mechanism of action of a new drug that shows great promise for the therapy of multiple sclerosis.
The scientists report the unique action of FTY720, or Fingolimod, an immunosuppressant drug that was already known to affect the functioning of the immune system by preventing the egress of white blood cells from the lymph nodes into the blood. The article was pre-published as a First Edition Paper in Blood, The Journal of the American Society of Hematology, which appeared online on Sept. 28.
In this study, the research team found that FTY720 also inhibited the activity of a key enzyme called cPLA2, which is necessary for the production of inflammatory mediators, known as eicosanoids. Eicosanoids drive inflammatory disorders such as asthma and multiple sclerosis.
As per Sarah Spiegel, Ph.D., professor and chair in the VCU Department of Biochemistry, and lead author on the study, the inhibition of cPLA2 would shut down the entire inflammatory pathway, possibly without the side-effects caused by medications such as Vioxx, that have been withdrawn from the pharmaceutical market.
FTY720, a drug developed by Novartis, has shown considerable therapeutic effects in a recent small, placebo-controlled clinical trial involving patients with relapsing multiple sclerosis. The study was reported in the September 2006 issue of the New England Journal (NEJM) by an international research team. With its novel mode of action and the added benefit of an oral formulation, further clinical development of FTY720 might have a major impact on therapy of MS, said Spiegel.........
Posted by: Beverly Permalink Source
October 12, 2006, 5:00 AM CT
Cassini Finds More Rings
Images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, looking in the direction of the Sun, have provided scientists fresh insights into the dynamic nature of the rings and, in particular, the creation of new rings made from tiny particles released from larger bodies.
Cassini findings being presented this week at the Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting of the American Astronomical Society held in Pasadena, Calif. include several new faint ring structures formed by processes acting on and within Saturn's moons and main rings.
A series of unique observations gathered in mid-September by NASA's Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft as it drifted slowly through Saturn's shadow, allowed the entire ring system to be seen from a perspective that highlights microscopic ring particles: in many cases, particles only recently released into Saturn orbit. While observing from this locale, Cassini spotted, a single faint new ring, announced previously, in the shared orbit of the moons Janus and Epimetheus.
Scientists are now ecstatic to find even more rings. A second new diffuse but narrow ring is coincident with the orbit of the tiny moon Pallene, also discovered by Cassini's imaging cameras and only 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) across. Curiously, another similar-sized moon called Methone, discovered earlier in the mission in roughly the same region, does not seem to sport a ring.........
Posted by: Beverly Permalink Source
October 11, 2006, 8:26 PM CT
More Powerful Computer Chips
A University of Central Florida research team has made a substantial inroad toward establishing extreme ultraviolet light (EUV) as a primary power source for manufacturing the next generation of computer chips.
The team, led by Martin Richardson, university trustee chair and UCF's Northrop Grumman professor of X-Ray optics, successfully shown for the first time an EUV light source with 30 times the power of prior recorded attempts enough to power the stepper machines used to reproduce detailed circuitry images onto computer chips.
The successful use of EUV light for this purpose marks a milestone in an industry-wide effort to create the most efficient and cost-effective power source for the next generation of chip production. Chips are now manufactured using longer-wavelength ultraviolet light sources.
The UCF breakthrough came as a result of a collaboration between Richardson and Powerlase Ltd., a company based in England. The company provided UCF with a powerful Starlase laser to combine with the specialized laser plasma source technology that the UCF team has developed. The unique technology combines the high conversion of laser light to EUV and effectively eliminates the neutral and charged particles that are linked to existing EUV plasma sources. If allowed to stream freely away from the source, those particles can harm the expensive optics used in EUV steppers.........
Posted by: Beverly Permalink Source
October 11, 2006, 4:58 AM CT
Some Butterflies Travel Farther, Reproduce Faster
Scientists have uncovered physiological differences among female Glanville fritillary butterflies that allows some to move away from their birth place and establish new colonies. These venturesome butterflies are stronger fliers and reproduce more quickly in comparison to their less mobile female relatives.
The study is a window to how genetic differences influence behavior and how the environment influences genetic change by favoring individuals with certain traits, said lead author Howard W. Fescemyer. The new study found significant physiological differences that may account for the more adventuresome behavior of certain of the females.
The work is important because human activity is disrupting a number of animal habitats, forcing more and more species to do what the fritillary has long done in its naturally fragmented environment. Researchers want to know how this fragmentation influences a species' evolution.
"We may be selecting for genes that enhance the dispersal or migratory capability of animals when we fragment the landscape," Fescemyer said. The animals best able to migrate are more likely to survive and reproduce. "What we learn could apply to any organism that has to move to find food," he added.
land Islands are natural laboratory........
Posted by: Beverly Permalink Source
October 10, 2006, 10:14 PM CT
Research Development And Economic Growth
impact of R&D on the economy
New calculations from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) suggest research and development (R&D) accounted for a substantial share of the resurgence in U.S. economic growth in recent years. Using data from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) annual surveys of government, academic, industry and non-profit R&D expenditures, the bureau determined R&D contributed 6.5 percent to economic growth between 1995 and 2002.
Some 40 percent of the nation's productivity and growth is unaccounted for in the gross domestic product (GDP), according to BEA Director Steve Landefeld. That's mainly because reliable data in some economic sectors simply don't exist.
NSF and agencies in many other nations collect extensive R&D expenditure data because R&D is vital to economic growth and social welfare, and often results in unimagined benefits. Indeed, the resources organizations devote to R&D influence both economic growth and international competitiveness.
In 2004, NSF's Division of Science Resources Statistics (SRS) enter into a multi-year agreement with BEA to use data from R&D expenditure surveys SRS routinely collects to produce an R&D "satellite account" -a supplemental set of data that can be factored into economic measurements--to determine the impact of R&D spending by various organizations on U.S. growth and productivity.........
Posted by: Beverly Permalink Source
October 10, 2006, 10:06 PM CT
Gems Of Knowledge
By processing vast amounts of data, computers helped astronomers make new discoveries about the universe. Now they're helping banks and other companies learn more about their customers.
As telescopes scan the heavens they generate huge amounts of data. Take the Hubble Space Telescope, for example. It produces about 1,000 gigabytes of data each year - enough to fill more than 200 million pages. Newer telescopes generate even more.
So what does all this data tell us? That's the question PPARC asked scientists at the University of Edinburgh more than 10 years ago.
All and nothing.
The answer is both all and nothing.
Like other scientific instruments, telescopes only give us the basic facts. They report everything they find - the positions of the objects in space, their brightness and more. And they report it all as accurately as they are able.
Unfortunately telescopes don't explain anything. Why are the stars where they are? What makes them move? Which stars are in which galaxy? And why does their brightness change? Telescopes haven't a clue.
To answer questions like these, astronomers have to put the facts together. Patterns in the data give them vital clues about how the universe works. The problem is that there is so much data to look through.........
Posted by: Beverly Permalink Source
October 10, 2006, 9:25 PM CT
Nobelists' Work Supports Big-bang Theory
MIT alumnus George F. Smoot has been awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in physics, together with John C. Mather, for work that looks back into the infancy of the universe and attempts to gain some understanding of the origin of galaxies and stars.
The work, based on measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation made with NASA's COBE satellite, provides increased support for the big-bang theory of the origin of the universe. The COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) measurements also mark the inception of cosmology as a precise science. For the first time, cosmological calculations could be compared with data from real measurements.
According to the big bang scenario, the cosmic microwave background radiation is a relic of the earliest phase of the universe. Immediately after the big bang itself, the universe can be compared to a glowing body emitting radiation at a temperature of almost 3,000 degrees Celsius.
Since then, the radiation has cooled as the universe has expanded. The background radiation we can measure today corresponds to a temperature that is barely 2.7 degrees above absolute zero. The new Nobel laureates were able to calculate this temperature thanks to the COBE measurements.
COBE also had the task of seeking small variations of temperature in the cosmic background radiation in different directions. Extremely small differences of this kind--in the range of a hundred-thousandth of a degree--offer an important clue to how the galaxies came into being. The variations in temperature measured by COBE show us how the matter in the universe began to "aggregate." This was necessary if the galaxies, stars and ultimately life forms like us were to be able to develop.........
Posted by: Beverly Permalink Source
October 10, 2006, 9:22 PM CT
No Hands Video
Now, a St. Louis-area teenage boy and a computer game have gone hands-off, thanks to a unique experiment conducted by a team of neurosurgeons, neurologists, and engineers at Washington University in St. Louis.
The boy, a 14-year-old who suffers from epilepsy, is the first teenager to play a two-dimensional video game, Space Invaders, using only the signals from his brain to make movements.
Getting subjects to move objects using only their brains has implications toward someday building biomedical devices that can control artificial limbs, for instance, enabling the disabled to move a prosthetic arm or leg by thinking about it.
Many gamers think fondly of Atari's Space Invaders, one of the most popular breakthrough video games of the late '70s. The player controls the motions of a movable laser cannon that moves back and forth across the bottom of the video screen. Row upon row of video aliens march back and forth across the screen, slowly coming down from the top to the bottom of the screen. The objective is to prevent any one of the aliens from landing on the bottom of the screen, which ends the game. The player has an unlimited ammunition supply.
The aliens can shoot back at the player, who has to evade, moving left and right. There are lots of levels of play, reflecting the speed at which the aliens descend. The Washington University subject mastered the first two levels of play, using just his imagination.........
Posted by: Ethen Permalink Source
October 9, 2006, 9:21 PM CT
mammalian 'disorderly' proteins
Investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital turned up the heat on "disorderly" proteins and confirmed that most of these unruly molecules perform critical functions in the cell. The St. Jude team completed the first large-scale collection, investigation and classification of these so-called intrinsically unstructured proteins (IUPs), a large group of molecules that play vital roles in the daily activities of cells.
The new technique for collecting and identifying IUPs is important because eventhough researchers have been aware of the existence of flexible proteins for a number of years, they have only recently realized that these molecules play major biological roles in the cell, as per Richard Kriwacki, Ph.D., an associate member of the St. Jude Department of Structural Biology. Moreover, he said, prior work by other scientists suggested that a large proportion of IUPs in mammalian cells play key roles in transmitting signals and coordinating biochemical and genetic activities that keep the cell alive and functioning. Kriwacki is senior author of a report on this work that appears in the prepublication online issue of Journal of Proteome Research.
"Until now there was no way to separate IUPs in large numbers from the more structured proteins and confirm their roles in the cell," Kriwacki said. "Our new technique selectively concentrates the IUPs that are involved in regulating functions in the cell and transmitting signals within them".........
Posted by: Beverly Permalink Source
October 9, 2006, 9:19 PM CT
Disks Around Stars
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, in collaboration with ground-based observatories, has at last confirmed what philosopher Emmanuel Kant and researchers have long predicted: that planets form from debris disks around stars.
More than 200 years ago, the philosopher Emmanuel Kant first proposed that planets are born from disks of dust and gas that swirl around their home stars. Though astronomers have detected more than 200 extrasolar planets and have seen a number of debris disks around young stars, they have yet to observe a planet and a debris disk around the same star. Now, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, in collaboration with ground-based observatories, has at last confirmed what Kant and researchers have long predicted: that planets form from debris disks around stars.
The Hubble observations by an international team of astronomers led by G. Fritz Benedict and Barbara E. McArthur of the University of Texas, Austin, USA, show for the first time that a planet is aligned with its star's circumstellar disk of dust and gas. The planet, detected in year 2000, orbits the nearby Sun-like star Epsilon Eridani, located 10.5 light-years from Earth in the constellation Eridanus. The planet's orbit is inclined 30 degrees to Earth, the same angle at which the star's disk is tilted. The results will appear in the recent issue of the Astronomical Journal.........
Posted by: Beverly Permalink Source
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