In working to halt the overgrowth of blood vessels that feed cancerous tumors, the antiangiogenic molecules endostatin and tumstatin take two distinct and very different tactics, according to a study in the April 15 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

These findings, which currently appear on-line, suggest for the first time that these two agents combined may prove more effective in battling cancer than either one used separately.

“Just as aspirin, a

Purdue University researchers have made a discovery that may lead to the development of an innovative liquid-cooling system for future computer chips, which are expected to generate four times more heat than today’s chips.

Researchers had thought that bubbles might block the circulation of liquid forced to flow through “microchannels” only three times the width of a human hair. Engineers also thought that small electric pumps might be needed to push liquid through the narrow channels, incre

A new computer software package, currently under development, will give the term “personal digital assistant” (PDA) a new meaning, helping users quickly and easily evaluate if they are operating at their mental best.

“Difficult tasks, such as an astronaut performing a space walk or a surgeon doing a complicated operation, require the utmost attention and vigilance. We’re developing a way for people to test themselves and make sure they are mentally up to the challenge,” said Dr. Stephen Kos

Mineral salts are essential for living organisms. To be precise, it is from these, living cells get their basic components, the ions. Common salt, for example, contains chloride and sodium ions which the cell uses to establish and maintain electrochemical balance with the environment.

In order to achieve sodium equilibrium in animal cells, for example, the external sodium concentration has to be ten times greater than the internal one. It is precisely due to this difference in concentration

The major features of evolution are pre-determined and not only the result of random or accidental processes, two leading European scientists propose in a paper published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology .

Professor Robert Williams of the University of Oxford and Professor Fraústo da Silva of the Instituto Superior Tecnico of Lisbon, challenge the Darwinist idea that the overall course of evolution random and purposeless, and that the appearance of organisms with increasing complexity

In the May 2003 issue of EMBO reports, researchers from the German Robert Koch Institute in Berlin report finding the pathological prion protein PrPSc in a wide range of skeletal muscles after feeding hamsters with prion-infected food. PrPSc is believed to be an essential – if not the sole – constituent of the agent that causes BSE in cattle, scrapie in sheep and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.

The researchers fed Syrian hamsters with food pellets that contained mashed-up brain tissue f