Discovery

It was reported in the ScienceDaily that the world’s largest software maker—Microsoft–launched a free software application called WorldWide Telescope on Monday that will allow everyone from space novices to astronomy professors to easily explore galaxies, star systems and distant planets.

It stitches together 12 terabytes, allowing users to zoom in and out of galaxies that are thousands of light years away. The experience is similar to playing a video game, REUTERS mentioned.

Copyright Reuters 2008. See Restrictions for more details.

In recent years, anthrax has become a top choice as a biological warfare agent, according to the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), because its spores can easily become airborne.

Early studies show that a new mucosal vaccine against anthrax has the potential to provide military personnel with more effective and efficient protection against a “popular� bioweapon. The study published in the journal Clinical and Vaccine Immunology (CVI).

Mingtao Zeng, Ph.D., assistant professor within Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Rochester Medical Center said, that the study found that a mucosal delivery system promises to add a second layer of immune protection against anthrax by priming the disease-fighting cells in mucous membranes lining the nose along with those in the blood, and with just three doses. “Along with the addition of newly precision-designed vaccine components, should represent important steps in the race to provide troops with stronger protection in a vaccine that is easier to use�, he added.

Taken from ScienceDaily.

Two teams, Jeffrey Kordower of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.and Patrik Brundin of the Wallenberg Neuroscience Center in Lund, Sweden, develop advanced therapies based on neurons grown from stem cells.

The diseased cells in Parkinson contain structures called Lewy bodies, accumulations of a protein called α-synuclein that are a hallmark of Parkinson’s. This is a surprise, as conventional wisdom suggests that the grafted cells, still only 11 to 16 years old, are too young to be affected in this way.

Linked to this research, Ole Isacson of the McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, also studied three further patients, finding no Lewy bodies, and found a possibility to take skin cells from a Parkinson’s patient, reprogram them to an embryonic stem cell-like state, and then grow replacement neurons that would match to the patients’ own brain tissue.

Journal references: Nature Medicine, DOI: 10.1038/nm1746, 10.1038/nm1747 and 10.1038/nm1752; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0801677105

It was written in NewScientist that for decades, hundreds of labs throughout the world have sent flu samples to the World Health Organization’s Global Influenza Surveillance Network, using a venerable test for similarity called haemagglutinin inhibition.

The analysis was objected to chart immunological changes in the virus that might signal a severe flu season, and to predict which strains will cause the next epidemic so as to put them in the annually updated flu vaccine.

With a huge database of flu viruses, Colin Russell and colleagues at Cambridge University took 13,000 viral samples from all over the world between 2002 and 2007, and mapped their immunological similarities.

He said that, new viruses appeared in eastern and southeast Asia 6 to 9 months before they showed up anywhere else, and took another 6 to 9 months to reach Latin America.

Co-author Derek Smith explained, the flu epidemic was related to season. When the climatic conditions are right in the northern or southern temperate zones, they strike a spark and seed the next winter epidemic.

Better surveillance in east Asia should lead to better predictions of how flu is evolving, and what is likely to be needed in next year’s flu vaccine, says Smith.

Journal references: NewScientist

Nature (DOI:10.1038/nature06945)

In the United States and many other industrialized countries, heart disease is the leading cause of death. It is mentioned in Encarta that according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 710,000 people in the United States die of heart disease each year.

Fortunately, new research by Rockefeller University scientists found a new molecule that hopefully can be a key to anti-heart attack drug. They suggest that it should be possible to create a clot-busting pill that targets a receptor on the blood cells’ surface, something that high-risk patients could take at the first sign of chest pain.

The Rockefeller scientists say, the key to such a pill is a receptor called αIIbβ3 on the platelets’ surface that is intimately involved in the aggregation process. The αIIbβ3 receptor is made up of two halves: the αIIb subunit and the β3 subunit. Previous attempts to create αIIbβ3 inhibitors that could be taken orally led to drugs that bind to both halves; this blocks other platelets from attaching, but also changes the configuration of the receptor to its “on� position.

Adapted from Materials Provided By ScienceDaily
Credit : Encarta

Bioavailable plastics known contain substances that can be absorbed by living systems during their normal physiological functions.

But recently, it was revealed in ScienceDaily, that if research at Missouri University of Science and Technology is successful, the plastic bottles of the future could literally disappear within four months of being discarded.

By combining and modifying a variety of bio-based, oil-based and natural polymers, the team seeks to create optimal blends that can be used to make agricultural films, bottles, biomedical and drug delivery devices, and more. Well, this is a very good technology-based solution to environmental problem.

See here for the complete report.

Source and Credit : ScienceDaily

First thing come up into our mind when we’re talking about solar system maybe the Sun and everything that orbits the Sun, including the planets and their satellites; the dwarf planets, asteroids, Kuiper Belt Objects, and comets; and interplanetary dust and gas.

If one could look down on the solar system from far above the North Pole of Earth, the planets would appear to move around the Sun in a counterclockwise direction. All of the planets except Venus and Uranus, and the dwarf planet Pluto, rotate on their axes in this same direction.

But recently, Finnish Meteorological Institute has moved the development of the electric solar wind sail, electric sail propulsion might have a large impact on space research and space travel throughout the solar system.

Dr. Pekka Janhunen developed the electric solar wind sail, uses the solar wind as its thrust source and therefore needs no fuel or propellant.

“We haven’t encountered major problems in any of the technical fields thus far. This has already enabled us to start planning the first test mission,â€� says Dr. Pekka Janhunen.

Hopefully, the electric sail might lower the cost of all space activities and thereby, for example, help making large solar power satellites a viable option for clean electricity production.

Taken From Materials Provided By : ScienceDaily

ScienceDaily reported, a team of Japanese astronomers has discovered that our galaxy’items’ => 4,s central black hole let loose a powerful flare three centuries ago by using NASA, Japanese, and European X-ray satellites.

This finding helps resolve a long-standing mystery: why is the Milky Way’items’ => 4,s black hole so quiescent? Black Hole is an extremely dense celestial body that has been theorized to exist in the universe. The gravitational field of a black hole is so strong that, if the body is large enough, nothing, including electromagnetic radiation, can escape from its vicinity.

The new study will appear in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan, combines results from Japan’s Suzaku and ASCA X-ray satellites, NASA’items’ => 4,s Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the European Space Agency’items’ => 4,s XMM-Newton X-ray Observatory.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in elderly men and the second most common cause of cancer-related death in men. It may be detected by digital rectal examination, but recently, researchers at the University of Michigan developed an experimental biomarker test that more accurately detects prostate cancer than any other screening method currently in use.

The study was published in a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, mentioned that a simple urine test that screens for the presence of four different RNA molecules accurately identified 80 percent of patients in a study who were later found to have prostate cancer, and was 61 percent effective in ruling out disease in other study participants, far more accurate than the PSA blood test currently in use worldwide.

See the original report, here.

As a step toward realizing applications such as e-paper, flexible color monitors and “heads-up” displays in car windshields, engineers have created the first “active matrix” display using a new class of transparent transistors and circuits.

It was mentioned in ScienceDaily that, the transistors are made of “nanowires,” a tiny cylindrical structures as small as 20 nanometers, in order to create light emitting diodes or OLEDS, that rival the brightness of conventional pixels in flat-panel television sets, computer monitors and displays in consumer electronics.

Silicon carbide nanowires are stronger than multiple-wall carbon nanotubes and may be the strongest materials known. A possible use is as improved reinforcing materials for ceramic composite materials.

Carbon nanotubes, researchers recently found, can serve as templates for making semiconductor gallium nitride nanorods, which could be used to produce blue-light-emitting diodes. Carbon nanotubes could also be employed as templates for making ceramic oxide nanotubes for ‘nanoscale’ electrochemical devices. They were used to create a proof-of-concept active-matrix display similar to those in television sets and computer monitors. An active-matrix display is able to precisely direct the flow of electricity to produce video because each picture element, or pixel, possesses its own control circuitry.

Adapted from materials provided by Purdue University, enriched by ScienceDaily