ADE Biotec and the INASMET Foundation, both from the Basque Country, after three years of working together, have developed a new purification technique for purines. The technique is based on electroflotation and could be very beneficial for agriculture as it has a high level (80%+) of purification and very low costs (1 euro/m3). Most of the development project has been carried out at a pilot plant on a Toledo pig farm.

Nowadays purines (excrements plus sewage water from farms) constitute one

Researchers have identified a protein fragment that keeps at least one major tumor suppressor gene from preventing cancer like it should. The fragment belongs to a class of proteins known as apoptotic enhancers (ASPP), named for their ability to stimulate programmed cell death, or apoptosis, by the p53 gene.

But a study published in Nature Genetics finds that one member of this group, called iASPP, actually inhibits p53’s normal cell killing power. When iASPP levels were reduced in experime

With a high-tech fix for faulty cellular editing, scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have moved a step closer to developing treatments for a host of diseases as diverse as breast cancer, muscular dystrophy, and cystic fibrosis.

Many human diseases have been linked to defects in a cellular editing process called pre-messenger RNA splicing. Adrian Krainer, a molecular biologist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, has spent years investigating this complex editing process, which t

Researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research are gaining new insight into the molecular players involved in the process of vertebral column formation in the embryo.

A research team headed by Dr. Olivier Pourquie, currently an Associate Scientist at the Stowers Institute, were pioneers in providing evidence for an oscillator called the segmentation clock, a timing mechanism responsible for the periodic production of the somites (the precursors of the vertebrae) in the embr

Both sides of the brain play a role in processing emotional communication, with the right side stepping in when we focus not on the “what” of an emotional message but rather on how it feels.

By studying blood flow velocity to each side of the brain, Belgian psychologists have opened a window onto the richness and complexity of human emotional communication. Their research appears in the January 2003 issue of Neuropsychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA).

In recent years a new view of health has emerged. The change has been so momentous that it has been called a paradigm shift. But what kind of social transformation are we experiencing? What is actually meant by ‘health promotion’? This is what Peter Korp at the University of Trollhättan/Uddevalla has investigated in his doctoral dissertation in sociology. The study is the first to be carried out on the basis of conditions in Sweden.

The view of how health is dealt with in society ha