Get ready to rewrite those biology textbooks – again. Although the “lowly” blue-green algae, or Cyanobacteria, have long been credited as one of Earth’s earliest life forms and the source of the oxygen in the early Earth’s atmosphere, they might be neither.

By creating a new genetic family tree of the world’s most primitive bacteria and comparing it to the geochemistry of ancient iron and sulfur deposits, Carrine Blank of Washington University has found evidence that instead of Cyanobacter

The relationship between rocks and our health, and new methods for farming and countryside management to both encourage wildlife and make a profit, are just two of the exciting research projects highlighted in the latest issue of Planet Earth, the quarterly journal of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

The rock diet

Rocks are a vital source of the essential elements and minerals people need to stay healthy. The British Geological Survey (BGS) together with part

The basque company Endorasoft has created two computer systems that will offer to consumers and companies more services and possibilities for this kind of telephone systems.

Endorasoft is a company that develops software and hardware for applications in mobile telephone systems. At the present, they have two products, XSMS and XSIM, two new products in the market.

The XSMS is designed for massive sending of short messages by mobile phones. The objective is to avoid the rest

Women may worry more about their weight, but it’s men who are more likely to become hooked on exercise, a University of Florida study shows.

College-age men were twice as likely as their female counterparts to exercise to excess, and were more prone to becoming irritable and tense if they missed a scheduled workout time, according to a study published in the June issue of the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors.

“We think of exercise as a positive behavior, and for th

Drugs to protect the brains of Alzeimer’s patients could result from new finding.

Duke University Medical Center researchers have discovered that a seemingly mild “insult” to the brain could sensitize neurons to attack by immune system proteins that are otherwise protective.

The finding could explain why sufferers of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases significantly worsen following such insults. According to the scientists, such minimal “excitotoxic insult

Biomedical scientist Shuming Nie is testing the use of nanoparticles called quantum dots to dramatically improve clinical diagnostic tests for the early detection of cancer. The tiny particles glow and act as markers on cells and genes, giving scientists the ability to rapidly analyze biopsy tissue from cancer patients so that doctors can provide the most effective therapy available.

Nie, a chemist by training, is an associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Eng