Sunlight can convert triclosan, a common disinfectant used in anti-bacterial soaps, into a form of dioxin, and this process may produce some of the dioxin found in the environment, according to research at the University of Minnesota. The researchers said that although the dioxin was a relatively benign form, treating wastewater with chlorine could possibly lead to the production of a much more toxic species of dioxin. The study is in press in the Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology A: Chemist

Millions of people suffering from diabetes mellitus may be spared the ordeal of pricking their fingers several times a day to test blood sugar levels, thanks to a breakthrough by University of Pittsburgh researchers who have developed a non-invasive method to measure the glucose level in bodily fluids.

Researchers Sanford A. Asher, Ph.D., professor of chemistry in the faculty and College of Arts and Sciences, and David Finegold, M.D., professor of pediatrics in the School of Medicine, creat

Study sheds light on potential bioterror agent, Coxiella burnetii

Scientists at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) and their collaborators have deciphered and analyzed the complete genome sequence of Coxiella burnetii, a potential bioterror agent that causes Q Fever.

C. burnetii, which was first isolated as the cause of Q Fever in Australia in 1937, is typically found in farm animals but also infects humans, including an epidemic that sickened many soldiers in Europe

A team of theoretical physicists working at CERN and the Technion Institute of Technology in Israel has developed a theory to account for the mysterious gamma ray bursts that come from the depths of the Universe. According to their ideas, gamma ray bursts are linked to supernovae, the cataclysmic explosions of massive stars at the end of their lives. When a new gamma ray burst (GRB 030329) was seen on March 29 2003, the CERN-Technion team immediately predicted that light from a supernova would first

Nature has many patterns and ecologists seek to both describe and understand them. Nature also is very complex. One challenge is to find patterns in that complexity and to ask whether simple explanations lie beneath them.

Ecologists have tackled this challenge for decades, erecting various hypotheses and debating their plausibility. In an important paper featured in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), an international team of ecologists describes

New research at North Carolina State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine indicates that cloned pigs can have the same degree of variability in physical appearance and behavior as normally bred animals. Two separate studies show that while clones are genetically identical to the original animal, the similarities end there.

This dispels the commonly held notion that cloned animals retain the physical and behavioral attributes of the animal from which they were cloned. The research was