Life Sciences and Chemistry

A University of California scientist working at Los Alamos National Laboratory with collaborators from the University of Cambridge (England) and the World Health Organization National Influenza Center at Erasmus Medical Center, (Rotterdam, Netherlands) have developed a computer modeling method for mapping the evolution of the influenza virus. The method could soon help medical researchers worldwide develop a better understanding of certain mutations in influenza and other viruses that allow diseases

West Nile virus has become a widespread human health concern, yet little attention is given to the grave situation facing certain wildlife species dying from the deadly disease, says a University of Alberta scientist. Cameron Aldridge is part of a research team to have shown that the West Nile Virus represents a significant new stressor on the sage-grouse—a species already on the endangered list in Canada and under current consideration for federal listing in the United States. “We don’t yet kn

Can doping athletes be stopped? With the Athens Olympics about to open, scientists are increasingly concerned that sophisticated techniques for evading drug tests will make it difficult for testers to catch athletes using steroids and other drugs, especially at future athletic competitions when genetic-based enhancements are expected to be prevalent.

In the August/September issue of Update, the magazine of the New York Academy of Sciences, writer Diane Kightlinger documents how advances in

Can a dose of Geritol (iron) really save them?

One might not think that our North Atlantic cod are taking their marching orders from the ghost of Genghis Khan but indeed they may well be. It is all about the story of dust in the wind. Here at the Planktos Foundation we have been working on this story of on how the oceans are being degraded by rising CO2. The key is the link between the oceans and land and the dependency the oceans have on dust born iron and other micro-nutrients. I

A research team at Aston University has received funding to try and develop an efficient vaccine for badgers against Tuberculosis (TB). Special algae beads could be used to deliver the vaccine to the animals.

In the UK, badgers are often infected with bovine Tuberculosis (TB) and there is evidence that they may be linked with TB infection in cattle, which has resulted in randomised badger culling since 1998. Obviously this isn’t the most humane way of dealing with the problem, so resear

History of life on the Earth witnessed five mass extinctions of species as a result of natural calamities. Currently, biologists are talking more and more often about the sixth wave of extinction provoked in many respects by human beings. This opinion is shared by a Russian sea fauna diversity specialist A.V. Adrianov (Institute of Maritime Biology, Far-East Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences). Research in this area has been supported by the Far-East Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, CRDF,