News at a glance: Snags in emissions monitoring, negotiations on biodiversity, and a drug for sleeping sickness
CLIMATE SCIENCE
Volcano and NASA deliver blows to climate monitoring
Efforts to monitor global greenhouse gas emissions suffered two setbacks last week—one by chance, one by choice. In Hawaii, the first eruption of the Mauna Loa volcano since 1984 has cut off road access and power to a famed summit lab that has monitored atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO
2
) levels since 1958. Although lava flows have so far spared the lab, which is run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), measurements are unlikely to resume for several months. That means tracking data will have to...
Source: ScienceNOW - December 8, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: news
Wearable sensor could guide precision drug dosing
Key takeawaysVariations in how different people ’s bodies react to medicine mean that someantibiotics and anticancer drugs have to be dosed carefully to avoid serious side effects.A new wearable device continuously and painlessly measures the actual amount of medicine taken in by assessing fluid between cells underneath the skin.In studies in rats, the sensor accurately measured drug levels and could predict how much medication is effectively delivered to the animal ’s bloodstream.For some of the powerful drugs used to fight infection and cancer, there ’s only a small difference between a healing dose and a dose that...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - December 7, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Stanford investigates potential misconduct in president ’s research
Stanford University has launched an investigation of possible research misconduct in several papers co-authored many years ago by its president, neuroscientist Marc Tessier-Lavigne, after the school’s student newspaper
raised questions
about potentially manipulated images in the articles, published long before he came to the school.
The university “will assess the allegations presented in
The Stanford Daily
, consistent with its normal rigorous approach by which allegations of research misconduct are reviewed and investigated,” an administrator
told a reporter last night
. The stat...
Source: ScienceNOW - November 30, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: news
What is lecanemab? Can it cure Alzheimer's? And is it safe?
Professor John Hardy, a world-leading dementia researcher and molecular biologist at University College London, said the drug 'represents the beginning of the end'. (Source: the Mail online | Health)
Source: the Mail online | Health - November 30, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
CRISPR is so popular even viruses may use it
The celebrated gene-editing tool CRISPR started out as a bacterial defense against invading viruses. But it turns out the intended targets have stolen CRISPR for their own arsenals. A new study reveals that thousands of the bacteria-attacking viruses known as bacteriophages (phages, for short) contain the CRISPR system’s genetic sequences, suggesting they may deploy them against rival phages. The finding is a testament to the molecular weapon’s power—and may make CRISPR even more valuable as a laboratory gene editor.
The discovery “opens doors for possible new applications of CRISPR systems,” says genomicis...
Source: ScienceNOW - November 23, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: news
Scientists reveal new lines of attack to raise cancer survival rate
Targeting non-cancerous cells in tumours could open up new frontiers in fight against the diseaseScientists hope to double the survival rate of people with advanced cancer within a decade by using new lines of attack to fight the disease.Speaking at the launch of a joint five-year research strategy by the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) and the Royal Marsden NHS foundation trust in London, experts described how targeting non-cancerous cells within tumours could open up new frontiers in the fight against the disease, enabling more people to be cured and others to survive for far longer.Continue reading... (Source: Guardi...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - November 22, 2022 Category: Science Authors: Linda Geddes Tags: Cancer research Medical research Science Immunology Biochemistry and molecular biology Health Source Type: news
Scientists say eye-disease drug may also help fight COVID
FINDINGSAn interdisciplinary research team led by UCLA found that a drug already approved by the Food and Drug Administration for eye disease, verteporfin, stopped the replication of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Their laboratory study identified the Hippo signaling pathway as a potential target for therapies against the coronavirus.BACKGROUNDMany important human biological processes are controlled by complicated chain reactions called signaling pathways, in which certain proteins act as messenger molecules that promote or block the signals of other proteins.The lead researchers were investigating the Hippo...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - November 8, 2022 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
CCDS Release 24
An updated dataset of human protein-coding regions from the Consensus Coding Sequence (CCDS) collaboration Are you interested in a set of high-quality human coding regions (CDS) with equivalent annotation in NCBI’s RefSeq and EMBL-EBI’s (European Molecular Biology Laboratories-European Bioinformatics Institute) Ensembl annotations? Check out the new CCDS Release 24! This CCDS set was generated by … Continue reading CCDS Release 24 → (Source: NCBI Insights)
Source: NCBI Insights - November 2, 2022 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: NCBI Staff Tags: What's New Consensus Coding Sequence (CCDS) Human genome Matched Annotation from NCBI and EMBL-EBI (MANE) RefSeq Source Type: news
The Latest Breakthroughs That Could Improve Kidney Cancer Treatment
Dr. David McDermott started treating people with kidney cancer in the 1990s. Back then, he says the prognosis for most of his patients with advanced disease was dispiritingly grim. “We had very few treatment options, and the survival for patients was a year or less,” he recalls. “Radiation and chemotherapy were tried, but they didn’t work.”
Things began to change when researchers discovered that kidney cancers were highly “angiogenic” compared to most other forms of cancer, meaning that kidney tumors are rich in blood vessels. This insight supported the development of angiogenesis ...
Source: TIME: Health - November 1, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Markham Heid Tags: Uncategorized Cancer healthscienceclimate Source Type: news
“ Why Aren ’ t We All Bacteria? ” Siddhartha Mukherjee Explores the Power of Cells
It’s hard to miss what appears to be dry cleaning hanging on the wall of Siddhartha Mukherjee’s apartment in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood. The apartment is a sunny, stylish, open space, filled with modern furniture, decorated with sculpture and paintings—and then, in perhaps the most conspicuous spot on the living room, is a brown felt suit with very long pants, draped over a plain wooden hanger. It looks entirely out of place—but it’s not.
The suit is the handiwork of German artist Joseph Bueys, who created the improbable bit of fabric art as a tribute to the nomadic Tatars who,...
Source: TIME: Science - October 31, 2022 Category: Science Authors: Jeffrey Kluger Tags: Uncategorized Magazine Science Source Type: news
‘ Why Aren ’ t We All Bacteria? ’ Siddhartha Mukherjee Explores the Power of Cells
It’s hard to miss what appears to be dry cleaning hanging on the wall of Siddhartha Mukherjee’s apartment in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood. The apartment is a sunny, stylish, open space, filled with modern furniture, decorated with sculpture and paintings—and then, in perhaps the most conspicuous spot on the living room, is a brown felt suit with very long pants, draped over a plain wooden hanger. It looks entirely out of place—but it’s not.
The suit is the handiwork of German artist Joseph Bueys, who created the improbable bit of fabric art as a tribute to the nomadic Tatars who,...
Source: TIME: Science - October 31, 2022 Category: Science Authors: Jeffrey Kluger Tags: Uncategorized Magazine Science Source Type: news
Why the U.S. Doesn ’t Have a Nasal Vaccine for COVID-19
The U.S. led the world in quickly developing COVID-19 vaccines—one of the few bright spots in the country’s otherwise criticized response. But while injectable vaccines are effective in protecting people from getting sick with COVID-19, they are less able to block infection. In order to put the pandemic behind us, the world will need a way to stop infections and spread of the virus. That’s where a different type of vaccine, one that works at the places where the virus gets into the body, will likely prove useful.
Here, though, the U.S. is losing its edge. In September, India approved a nasal COVID-19 vacc...
Source: TIME: Health - October 31, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Alice Park Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 healthscienceclimate Source Type: news
‘Mirror-image’ protein factories could one day make durable drugs the body can’t break down
All of life exists on just one side of a mirror. To put it more technically, the biomolecules that comprise living things—DNA, RNA, and proteins—are all “chiral.” Their building blocks have two possible mirror-image shapes, but in every case, life chooses just one. At least so far.
Today in
Science
, researchers report they’ve made strides toward exploring the other side of the mirror. They
re-engineered a workhorse enzyme that synthesizes RNA so it makes the mirror-image form
. They then used that enzyme to construct all the RNAs needed to make a ribosome, the cellular machine responsib...
Source: ScienceNOW - October 27, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: news
U.S. weighs crackdown on experiments that could make viruses more dangerous
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Source: ScienceNOW - October 19, 2022 Category: Science Source Type: news
[Ad hoc announcement pursuant to Art. 53 LR] Roche records solid results for the first nine months of 2022
Group salesup 2%[1] at constant exchange rates (CER) and 1% in Swiss francs; as expected, significantly lower COVID-19-related sales in both divisions in the third quarterSales in the Pharmaceuticals Divisionat the previous year ’s level with significantly lower sales of COVID-19-related products (Ronapreve and Actemra/RoActemra) and losses to biosimilars, offset by strong growth of newer medicinesSales in the Diagnostics Divisionrise 6%; base business remains strong; as expected, demand for COVID-19 tests sharply down in third quarterHighlights in the third quarter:EU approval forVabysmo (severe eye diseases)US approval...
Source: Roche Investor Update - October 18, 2022 Category: Pharmaceuticals Source Type: news