Scientists identify enzyme that can clean up pollution by explosives

October 10th, 2009 LONDON - Scientists have uncovered the structure of an unusual enzyme which can be used to reverse the contamination of land caused by RDX explosive. The discovery, by scientists from the York University Structural Biology Lab and the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products, will support the development of plants that can help tackle pollution from RDX.

October 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new mobile air research laboratory will help a team of researchers led by a Michigan State University professor better understand the damaging health effects of air pollution and why certain airborne particles - emitted from plants and vehicles - induce disease and illness. Jack Harkema, a University Distinguished Professor of pathobiology and diagnostic investigation in the College of Veterinary Medicine, will deploy the new 53-foot, 36,000-pound center - dubbed "AirCARE 2" - throughout southern Michigan, including metropolitan Detroit.

October 5th, 2009 STOCKHOLM - Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak of the US have won this year's Nobel Prize for Medicine, it was announced in Stockholm Monday. The three scientists solved a fundamental problem in biology on "how chromosomes can be copied in a complete way and how they are protected against degradation", the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute said.

October 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - McGill University researchers in Canada have shown that different patterns of training and learning lead to different types of memory formation. Describing a study they conducted in the Journal of Neuroscience, they say that its significance lies in the fact that it identifies the molecular differences between spaced training (distributed over time) and massed training (at very short intervals), shedding light on brain function and guiding learning and training principles.

September 24th, 2009 Planned emission cuts still means far hotter EarthWASHINGTON — A United Nations update says Earth's temperature is likely to jump nearly 6 more degrees by 2100 even if every country cuts greenhouse gas emissions as planned. Scientists looked at emission plans from 192 nations and calculated what would happen to global warming.

August 4th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Flasks, beakers and hot plates in chemistry labs may soon be passé, thanks to UCLA scientists who have developed a microchip technology that can perform thousands of chemical reactions at once. The scientists have developed technology to perform more than a thousand chemical reactions at once on a stamp-size, PC-controlled microchip, which could accelerate the identification of potential drug candidates for treating diseases like cancer.

July 22nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has shown that bleached corals bounce back to normal growth rates more quickly when they have clean water and plentiful sea life at their side. The new research study, led by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, suggests that by improving overall ocean health, corals are better able to recover from bleaching events, which occur when rising sea temperatures force corals to expel their symbiotic algae, known as zooxanthellae.

July 17th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists at the (US) Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed a new method for capturing significantly more heat from low-temperature geothermal resources, which holds promise for generating virtually pollution-free electrical energy. The scientists will determine if their innovative approach can safely and economically extract and convert heat from vast untapped geothermal resources.

July 11th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists from University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have identified an enzyme that plays a crucial role in the process of aging. Lead researcher Dr.

July 4th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists have developed a new explosives detector with incredible sensitivity and a range of up to 100 meters that could save lives and thwart the efforts of terrorists. The detector, developed by a team of researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is based on photo-induced acoustic spectroscopy (PIAS).

June 24th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The risk of toxic effects of pesticides on kids extends much longer into childhood than expected, reveals a new study at the University of California, Berkeley. Newborns' levels of an enzyme called paraoxonase 1 (PON1), critical to the detoxification of organophosphate pesticides, average one-third or less than those of the babies' mothers.

June 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a new study, scientists have identified a new microbe that can gorge themselves on toxic chemicals in petrochemical spillages at industrial sites, by digesting hydrocarbons. As part of the study, Hong-Qi Wang and Yan-Jun Chen College of Water Sciences, Beijing Normal University, working with Bo-Ya Qin of the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China, have investigated the activity of enzymes from the bacterium Bacillus cereus DQ01, which can digest the hydrocarbon n-hexadecane.

June 3rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - An international team of researchers has discovered an enzyme that plays a crucial role in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The researchers hope that the new finding could potentially lead to therapies to help those affected by ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, collectively referred to as IBD.

April 27th, 2009 LONDON - British medical scientists have devised a test to identify the best potential AIDS vaccines, a newspaper reported Monday. Early results suggest the test is able to detect not only whether a vaccine will generate a response from the body's immune system, but also whether this response will actively fight HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, the Times reported.

March 19th, 2009 LONDON - Scientists in the UK have developed robotic fish that would released into the sea for the first time to detect water pollution. According to a report in the Telegraph, the carp-shaped robots will be let loose in the port of Gijon in northern Spain as part of a three-year research project.