Chemotherapy destroys cancer cells, but it also kills healthy cells. In addition, cancer cells left behind after treatment can develop resistance to therapy, rendering follow-up treatment ineffective. But a new type of cancer treatment that uses cellular “Trojan horses” to slip into cancer cells could remedy that. In a study published in Nature Biotechnology, Australian researchers describe a method that has successfully treated aggressive and resistant tumors in mice and dogs.
The technique uses a rising technology known as RNA interference, or RNAi, which was the subject of research for the 2006 Nobel Prize in medicine recipients. This technology prevents the cell from manufacturing proteins by muting the genes responsible for their production, and relies on “mini-cells” to silence these genes. In the new study, these mini-cells were produced by bacteria and then coated with antibodies the cancer cells recognized, which allowed the mini-cells to target and slip inside of cancer cells like a Trojan horse.
The researchers use a two-step attack against the cancer cells. The first wave of mini-cells releases molecules that switch off the production of proteins that make the cancer cell resistant to chemotherapy. A second wave of EDV [mini] cells is then accepted by the cancer cell and releases chemotherapy drugs, killing the cancer cell. “The beauty is that our EDVs operate like ‘Trojan Horses’ They arrive at the gates of the affected cells and are always allowed in” [Reuters], says study coauthor Jennifer MacDiarmid.
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Human beings are increasingly making their homes on the coasts of continents, but this demographic shift is taking a toll on a sensitive coastal ecosystem that is often overlooked: seagrass meadows. A new analysis of seagrass abundance around the world found that 27 percent of these meadows have disappeared since 1879, and the rate of loss is accelerating. The study’s authors write: “Seagrass loss rates are comparable to those reported for mangroves, coral reefs and tropical rainforests, and place seagrass meadows among the most threatened ecosystems on earth….. Our report of mounting seagrass losses reveals a major global environmental crisis in coastal ecosystems, for which seagrasses are sentinels of change” [Nature News].
Endangered species expert Susanne Livingstone notes that despite these losses seagrass rarely makes it into the public consciousness. “It’s probably because they’re not as sexy [as corals], they’re not as attractive,” she says. “They’re just as ecologically important if not more so” [Nature News]. Seagrass meadows provide grazing for a variety of marine animals, including the green turtle and the manatee-like dugong. The coastal areas also serve as nurseries for fish; both coral reefs and commercial fisheries would feel the impact if seagrass meadows vanish.
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In the first confirmed case of drug-resistant swine flu worldwide, a Danish patient developed resistance to Tamiflu, the antiviral treatment used for flu prevention and treatment. The patient recovered and did not appear to have passed the resistant strain to others. While a drug-resistant virus could make it harder to treat and prevent the spread of the flu, experts maintain that the isolated case is not a cause for alarm, and say Tamiflu is still effective against the swine flu.
A spokesman for Tamiflu manufacturer Roche says the Danish patient developed drug-resistant swine flu while taking the drug as a preventative to avoid the contraction of swine flu…. He was probably already infected with the virus, and resistance to the drug emerged because he was given the lower preventative dose [The Wall Street Journal]. This type of resistance is known as drug-induced resistance, as opposed to naturally occurring resistance, in which a strain itself mutates to become unresponsive to a medication.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to recommend Tamiflu to treat the flu, along with another flu drug, Relenza. The World Health Organization also is expected to keep supporting the use of Tamiflu. Tamiflu-resistant strains of the seasonal flu have been found in Japan, which has used more than half the world’s supply of the drug each year. But those strains were weak and did not spread. A Tamiflu-resistant strain of the H5N1 bird flu was also isolated from a Vietnamese patient being treated with low-dose Tamiflu in 2005, but it also died out [The New York Times].
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The union between the native California tiger salamander and the non-native barred tiger salamander, which was brought in huge numbers from Texas beginning 60 years ago by California bait dealers [The New York Times], has produced an alarming hybrid offspring. A new study of the hybrid’s behavior in artificial ponds serves as a reminder that invasive species can alter ecosystems in unexpected ways: in this case, by getting too cozy with the natives of central California.
The new hybrid “superpredator” grows larger than either of its parent species, and its bigger mouth enables it to suck up a wide variety of amphibian prey, said lead study author Maureen Ryan…. Mostly on the menu are smaller pond species, such as the Pacific chorus frog and the California newt—both of which were “dramatically reduced” in population by the hybrid in the experiments [National Geographic News].
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The duck-billed dinosaurs more properly known as hadrosaurs were the most prolific vegetarians of the late Cretaceous period, and researchers think their unusual mouth mechanics may have played a role in their evolutionary success. A new study of the hadrosaur Edmontosaurus examined the animal’s fossilized teeth in unprecedented detail. Using an electron scanning microscope, researchers were able to examine minute scratches on individual dino teeth made by daily wear and tear 65 million to 68 million years ago to test competing theories about how the creatures may have munched [Scientific American].
The mouth of a hadrosaur has been compared to a “cranial Cuisinart,” with hundreds of teeth lined up in rows to chop up the tough plants of the late Cretaceous. But the dinosaurs didn’t have the complex jaw joint that mammals have, leaving scientists to puzzle over exactly how hadrosaurs did all that chewing [MSNBC]. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found scratches indicating that the movements of a hadrosaur’s teeth was a complicated matter, involving sideways and front to back motions as well as the traditional up and down chomp.
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In a 219-212 vote, the House of Representatives passed on Friday a climate bill designed to decrease U.S. dependence on oil and create “green” jobs. It’s now up to the Senate to pass or veto the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which also proposes a cap-and-trade system to impose historic limits on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
The bill has been tweaked since it was approved in May by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and it remains unclear how much progress the Senate will make on the bill. In it, U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases would be reduced 17 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels. That is less ambitious than the 20 percent initially sought, but slightly more aggressive than the approximately 15 percent Obama proposed. The legislation sets further pollution reduction goals — 42 percent by 2030 and 83 percent by 2050, with the latter just slightly higher than Obama suggested [Reuters]. The bill also speeds up the administration of $346 million in stimulus funds for the development and implementation of energy efficient technology.
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Global warming is expected to cause such alarming climate disruptions that talk of hurricanes and heat waves can overshadow another drastic process at work: Burning fossil fuels and otherwise producing excess carbon dioxide makes oceans and other bodies of water more acidic, as the water absorbs the gas. This acidification can change a fish’s physiology in ways that were previously unpredicted and could affect the fish’s survival, according to a study in Science.
Scientists raised groups of white sea bass in water of varying concentrations of carbon dioxide. They found that the fish in the most highly acidified water had the largest rock-shaped ear bones, known in biology parlance at otoliths. That contradicts what the researchers had hypothesized: The ear structure in fish, known as an otolith, is made up of minerals. Scientists knew that increasing carbon dioxide in the oceans — absorbed from the atmosphere — is making the sea more acidic, which can dissolve and weaken shells. They wondered if it also would reduce the size of the otoliths [Los Angeles Times]. Instead, the ear bones of fish growing in the tank with six times as much carbon dioxide than normal were 15 to 17 percent larger than normal. An water with a CO2 concentration about 3.5 times higher than current levels yielded fish with otoliths that were 7 to 9 percent larger than those raised in water with today’s carbon dioxide levels. That’s the CO2 level predicted by the year 2100.
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The state of Louisiana is losing its coastal wetlands to the Gulf of Mexico, and a new study suggests that conservationists won’t be able to turn the tide. If engineers don’t divert sediment-rich waters from the Mississippi River to help replenish a sinking river delta, about 10 percent of [the] state will slip beneath the waves by the end of this century. However, even if the engineers do try to abate the subsidence, the Mississippi doesn’t carry enough sediment to offset more than a small fraction of that loss, a new analysis suggests [Science News].
Before American settlers subdued the Mississippi and its tributaries, the river periodically overflowed its banks and spilled muddy water, thick with sediment, into surrounding wetlands. But the new study found that the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers today carry only half the sediment they did a century ago — between 400 million and 500 million tons a year then, compared with just 205 million tons today. The rest is now captured by more than 40,000 dams and reservoirs that have been built on rivers and streams that flow into the main channels [The Times-Picayune].
So even if Louisiana officials embark on an all-out campaign to restore the marshes through controlled levee breaks and diversion projects that bring back river water, it wouldn’t be enough to save the land–especially since sea levels are rising due to global warming. “We conclude that significant drowning is inevitable” [The Guardian], the study’s authors wrote.
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The solar probe Ulysses has circled the sun for more than 18 years–almost as long as the Greek hero Odysseus, also called Ulysses, was absent from home due to the Trojan War and his prolonged journey home–but the space probe doesn’t have a homecoming in its future. Ulysses will receive its final transmission tomorrow, as researchers say the scientific findings sent home by the failing spacecraft no longer justify the mission’s costs. After shut-off, Ulysses will continue to orbit the Sun, becoming in effect a man-made ‘comet’. “Whenever any of us look up in the years to come, Ulysses will be there, silently orbiting our star, which it studied so successfully during its long and active life” [SPACE.com], says mission manager Richard Marsden.
The craft has already exceeded expectations. In February 2008, mission engineers announced with great solemnity and with heaps of praise for the orbiter that the craft would fall silent within a few months. Its power supply had grown too weak to keep the craft’s fuel lines from freezing. Not so fast: Engineers figured out that they could keep the lines warm by firing the craft’s thrusters in short bursts every couple of hours [The Christian Science Monitor]. Using that clever fix, Ulysses soldiered on for another year.
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As of tomorrow, 101 years will have passed since the Tunguska Event, the mysterious explosion that flattened 800 square miles of Siberian forest. Just in time for the anniversary researchers have come up with yet another explanation for what may have caused the baffling blast. Previously, researchers best hypothesis was that a meteor struck the forest, but scientific expeditions failed to turn up an impact crater or any fragments of rock. The new hypothesis, which will be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, suggests that the Earth was hit by the icy core of a comet, which exploded in the atmosphere.
Researchers say that a comet strike would have released huge volumes of water vapour at very high altitude, creating highly reflective clouds that may explain why the sky was lit up for days after the collision, with people as far away as London saying that they could read newspapers outdoors at midnight, the scientists said [The Independent]. In an unusual twist, the evidence for the new theory comes from studies of the water vapor exhaust created by space shuttle launches.
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As the International Whaling Commission wound down this week with no progress made on the stalemate between pro-whaling and anti-whaling nations, some experts are beginning to question the commission’s central tool: the moratorium on commercial whaling established more than 20 years ago.Some experts wonder whether the ban is really protecting the world’s whale populations. Japan’s so-called “scientific whaling” program is a loophole in the ban, and the program is widely seen as a cover for commercial whaling. Japan catches more than 1,000 whales a year, and most cetacean researchers argue that whale populations exist at only a fraction of their former abundance and are far from large enough to sustain commercial harvesting for meat or oil — or even the culling of some 1,000 whales a year for science. Australia, a party to the IWC, campaigned this year to end any ”scientific whaling” that involves the deliberate killing of whales [Science News].
A report released by the commission on Monday also states that a quarter of the whales harvested from the Antarctic Ocean in the last seven months by Japanese researchers were pregnant. To many, the destruction of these whales and their unborn calves makes a mockery of the moratorium on whaling, given that the goal of the ban is to preserve whale populations. However, the Japanese Whaling Association contends on its Web site that “No whales have ever been hunted to extinction, nor are they likely to be. . . . [And] there are species which are abundant enough that marine management is needed,” such as for the Antarctic and northwestern Pacific minke whales and northwestern Pacific Bryde’s whales [Science News].
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Scientists have found a way to safely store notoriously dangerous white phosphorus on the atomic scale: in a cage made of atoms that can only be unlocked by a specific molecule, according to a study published in the journal Science.Containing white phosphorus, a tetrahedral formation of phosphorus atoms, will be useful because the molecule readily reacts if it comes into contact with air.
It’s not surprising, then, that it is often used in military campaigns to create smokescreens to mask movement from the enemy, as well as an incendiary in bombs, artillery and mortars [ScienceDaily]. White phosphorus is also an essential ingredient in many plant fertilizers and weed killers, so the ability to safely transport and store the molecule would also be an asset for those industries.
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As the second man to ever walk on the moon (he stepped out of the lunar module about 15 minutes after Neil Armstrong), Buzz Aldrin knows a little something about space exploration, about bold ambitions and great risks. Now, Aldrin is speaking out about NASA, and declaring loudly that the space agency has lost its boldness. The next step in humanity’s exploration of space must be a bootprint on Mars, he says.
Says Aldrin: “As I approach my 80th birthday, I’m in no mood to keep my mouth shut any longer when I see NASA heading down the wrong path. And that’s exactly what I see today. The agency’s current Vision for Space Exploration will waste decades and hundreds of billions of dollars trying to reach the moon by 2020—a glorified rehash of what we did 40 years ago. Instead of a steppingstone to Mars, NASA’s current lunar plan is a detour” [Popular Mechanics].
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To get inside the head of a homing pigeon as it navigates towards its roost, researchers turned a flock of pigeons into cutting-edge techno-birds. The scientists outfitted the birds with “neurologgers” consisting of an electroencephalograph (EEG) to read the bird’s brain waves and a GPS tracker to record its location; by matching a bird’s position to its brain activity, the researchers could determine the bird’s reaction to the landscape below it. They found that, just like humans, the pigeons use visual landmarks in their navigation.
How homing pigeons find their way back to a starting point is not completely known. Studies have shown that the birds variously use the position of the Sun and the Earth’s magnetic field as a compass, and sense of smell and visual cues as navigation aids. But the use of visual cues has been difficult to study, because if a bird flies over a landmark and doesn’t change its course, it’s impossible to know whether the bird has not perceived the cue or is ignoring it [The New York Times].
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Contrary to what scientists previously thought, it’s not only the power of a dog’s muscles that limits how fast the animal can accelerate; instead, it’s the need to keep those front paws on the ground and avoid doing a backflip. Although animals clearly don’t have wheels, the authors have branded this potential imbalance a quadrupedal “wheelie,” according to a study (pdf) published in the journal Biology Letters.
The ability to gain speed quickly is crucial for survival, but there’s a limit as to how rapidly an animal can accelerate. Researchers wondered whether the “wheelie” problem experienced by cars during a drag race could be a factor in four-legged animals’ ability to speed up. They came up with a simple mathematical model… to see how fast a quadruped could accelerate without tipping over backward. The model predicts that the longer the back is in relation to the legs, the less likely a dog is to flip over and the faster it can accelerate. Then the researchers tested the model by going down to the local track, London’s Walthamstow Stadium, and video-recording individual greyhounds as they burst out of the gate in time trials. The acceleration approached–but never exceeded–the limit predicted by the model [Science NOW]. That means that at low speeds, it’s the ability to keep his front end from pitching up that determines a dog’s maximum acceleration.
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