Ex-Soviet Union viruses could fill antibiotic gap.

Russian remedies could take out hardy US bacteria. Long-abandoned by Western medicine, viruses that naturally kill microbes are being imported as a potential substitute for antibiotics.

The emergence of multi-drug-resistant bacteria is intensifying the search for antibiotic replacements. Bemoaning the problem, clinician Glenn Morris of the University of Maryland in College Park got an idea from a colleague from the former Sov

Fortification and false memory could foil food and drug trials

When nutritionist Andrea Pontello went shopping for apple juice she got a “wake-up call”. Apple juice is normally low in vitamin C, but she found that 9 out of 11 brands had been boosted with additional vitamins.

Supplementation could scupper clinical trials for antioxidants, she realized, if participants’ intake of vitamins C and E from fortified foods is not taken into account.

Antioxidants mop up

How can the Universe be studied? There is no way to affect a research object of infinite dimensions. It means that the research can only be carried out via observations, employing all methods available. To this end scientists have been inventing more and more powerful telescopes which would enable them to examine closely remote spots of the Universe and to hear a `voice` of the sky at all available bandwidths. The scientists are planning to dispatch to space a cryogen submillimetric telescope called

Hydrogen peroxide is usually used for cleansing scratches and cuts. However, this is not the only one possible application of this substance in medicine. The vapor of a low-concentrated peroxide solution containing oxygen radicals can be used as an inhalant for an additional treatment of many illnesses. This has been established by the research team headed by V.L. Voeikov, at Biological Faculty of Moscow State University.

It is fashionable now to blame free radicals for all deadly sins, sin

The Sun emits electron-neutrinos, elementary particles of matter that have no electric charge and very little mass, created in vast numbers by the thermonuclear reactions that fuel our parent star. Since the early 1970s, several experiments have detected neutrinos arriving on Earth, but they have found only a fraction of the number expected from detailed theories of energy production in the Sun. This meant there was either something wrong with our theories of the Sun, or our understanding of neutrino

Researchers from the University of Warwick’s Department of Biological Sciences have found evidence that bovine tuberculosis remains in fields for up to 4 months. This means that long after an outbreak of bovine TB on a farm healthy cattle may still be exposed to the disease from pasture that had been used by infected cows any time in the previous 4 months.

University of Warwick researchers Professor Elizabeth Wellington and Jamie Young tested soil samples that they had exposed to bovine TB.