The Netherlands
Amsterdam, The Netherlands, June 22, 2009 -- High cholesterol levels are considered to be a risk factor not only for cardiovascular disease including stroke, but also for the development of Alzheimer's disease. Therefore, many cholesterol lowering drugs, including statins, have been developed in recent years.
HOUSTON - Like a mechanic popping the hood of a car to get at a faulty engine, a tumor-suppressing protein allows cellular repair mechanisms to pounce on damaged DNA by overcoming a barrier to DNA access.
"The performance of this breakthrough camera is without an equivalent anywhere in the world. The camera will enable great leaps forward in many areas of the study of the Universe," says Norbert Hubin, head of the Adaptive Optics department at ESO. OCam will be part of the second-generation VLT instrument SPHERE.
PHILADELPHIA -- How molecules of the oldest branch of the human immune system have interconnected has remained a mystery. Now, two new structures, both involving a central component of an enzyme important to the complement system of the immune response, reveal how this system fights invading microbes while avoiding problems of the body attacking itself.
HOUSTON -- (June 17, 2009) -- An overactive enzyme is behind a leaky calcium channel that plays a role in the development of atrial fibrillation, which is the most common cardiac arrhythmia that is responsible for a third of all strokes. However, it doesn't act alone, say researchers at Baylor College of Medicine.
Palo Alto, CA -- Cellulose is a fibrous molecule that makes up plant cell walls, gives plants shape and form and is a target of renewable, plant-based biofuels research. But how it forms, and thus how it can be modified to design energy-rich crops, is not well understood.
A lunar eclipse helped a group of international scientists take a snapshot of earth's chemical fingerprint, which could help to identify planets most similar to earth where life may be thriving.
University of Central Florida Associate Professor Eduardo Martin was a member of the team that made the observation, which is published in the June 11 edition of Nature magazine.
Philadelphia, PA 11 June 2009 -- The value and cost-effectiveness of screening for left ventricular (LV) dysfunction remains unclear, particularly since specific, evidence-based treatments are not available for the majority of patients with preserved systolic dysfunction, reports a study in the June issue of the Journal of Cardiac Failure (
Amsterdam, 11 June 2009 - What dog owner has not come home to a broken vase or other valuable items and a guilty-looking dog slouching around the house?
People with a family history of genetic disease are often discriminated against by insurance companies and their relatives and friends, according to research published on bmj.com today.
By 2040, more than 50% of the global population is expected to live in urban coastal areas. Yet climate change and sea level rise have made many coastal cities even more vulnerable to flooding due to rising sea level, storm surges and extreme weather-related river floods.
An infectious disease striking a large city may seem like a disastrous scenario -- millions of people sharing apartment buildings, crammed on buses and trains and brushing past one another on crowded sidewalks.
A group of Kansas State University engineers is finding that a truly disastrous epidemic scenario could also take place in the wide-open spaces of the Great Plains.
Your immune system plays an important function in your health -- it protects you against viruses, bacteria, and other toxins that can cause disease. In autoinflammatory diseases, however, the immune system goes awry, causing unprovoked and dangerous inflammation.
Philadelphia, PA, 4 June 2009 ?Preventing vascular congestion is an important mediator in heart failure, reports a study in the June issue of the Journal of Cardiac Failure (http://www.onlinejcf.com/), published by Elsevier.
The massive Arches Cluster is a rather peculiar star cluster. It is located 25 000 light-years away towards the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer), and contains about a thousand young, massive stars, less than 2.5 million years old [1].
