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Wild ducks may be key to development of flu vaccine

According to Dutch and Swedish researchers wild ducks carry more than a half-dozen different types of avian flu virus.

23 Aug 2005

California in conflict with FDA over warnings on canned tuna

The state of California has had it's knuckles rapped by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over warnings on canned tuna.

23 Aug 2005

State-of-the-art portable biosensing device based on micro and nanotechnologies

A state-of-the-art portable biosensing device based on micro- and nanotechnologies will empower doctors to rapidly and accurately forewarn patients of their genetic risk of developing diseases such as cancer.

23 Aug 2005

Newly discovered virus linked to childhood respiratory infections

A team of Swedish researchers say they have identified a previously unknown virus that may cause many cases of serious respiratory infections in children.

23 Aug 2005

Elderly woman latest victim of swine flu in Hong Kong

The Hong Kong government has reported that an elderly woman has contracted the pig-borne bacterial disease that has killed nearly 40 people in mainland China.

22 Aug 2005

Food scares put Hong Kong's reputation on the line

With Hong Kong's reputation in many respects on the line, lawmakers there have castigated the government for failing to alert the public immediately after it found a suspected cancer-causing chemical malachite green in some fish from China.

22 Aug 2005

Birth order not a factor in multiple sclerosis risk

A new Canadian study suggests that the youngest children in a family are not less likely than older siblings to develop multiple sclerosis (MS).

22 Aug 2005

Epidemiological study links heart protection with non-aspirin, non-steroidal drugs

It is well known that aspirin, a non-selective, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) that inhibits cyclooxygenase (COX), reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke.

22 Aug 2005

Study shows potential treatment for brain cancer

A compound that kills cancer can sneak past the blood brain barrier, which protects the brain from foreign substances, to do its work in fighting a particularly invasive brain cancer, according to a new Saint Louis University animal study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online Early Edition the week of Aug. 22.

22 Aug 2005

MRI helps map smallest deformations inside hearts

Using magnetic resonance imaging technology, or MRI, to tag the work of millions of individual strands of heart muscle fibers, researchers at Johns Hopkins have successfully mapped the smallest deformations inside the beating hearts of 441 middle-aged and elderly men and women who have either silently developed heart disease or remained healthy.

22 Aug 2005

Novel mechanism, called recursive splicing reveals how cells process large genes

Important messages require accurate transmission. Big genes are especially challenging because they combine many coding segments (exons) that lie between long stretches of non-coding elements (introns).

22 Aug 2005

New technique for creating human embryonic stem cells

Researchers have developed a new technique for creating human embryonic stem cells by fusing adult somatic cells with embryonic stem cells. The fusion causes the adult cells to undergo genetic reprogramming, which results in cells that have the developmental characteristics of human embryonic stem cells.

22 Aug 2005

Global data exchange policy brings 100,000,000,000 letters of the genetic code

The world's three leading public repositories for DNA and RNA sequence information have reached 100 gigabases (100,000,000,000 bases; the 'letters' of the genetic code) of sequence.

22 Aug 2005

Gene therapy advance shows potential for developing improved treatment for hemophilia

A virus that typically infects insects could help with the development of gene therapy treatment for Hemophilia A, a condition in which even a bump on the knee can cause serious internal bleeding in people.

22 Aug 2005

Protein thought to promote lymphoma by merely preventing cancer cells from dying appears to actively promote cancer cell growth

A protein previously thought to merely hinder the activity of a key cellular protein linked to cancer cell death, now appears to mimic the cellular signaling of that protein; potentially leading to the development of lymphoma.

22 Aug 2005

Discovery of a potential oncogene in ovarian cancer

Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report they have discovered a potential oncogene in ovarian cancer, which is the leading cause of gynecological cancer death in U.S. women.

22 Aug 2005

$Propofol is a safe and effective drug to treat children with refractory status epilepticus$

Propofol is a safe and effective drug to treat children with refractory status epilepticus

...and it is recommended before thiopental, according to a study in the August 23, 2005 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Propofol and thiopental are widely used intravenous anesthetics which are also known to help control seizures.

22 Aug 2005