Communication, clearly essential to humans, is also essential to cells, their elemental building blocks. In order to preserve organic cohesion, cells need to communicate with their environment, but they also need to ensure adequate communication between their various compartments.

These forms of intracellular exchange are essential and require the setting up of actual networks. Membrane transport tubes were evidenced some years ago, but their formation has up till now remained a mystery.

The impact of heat on death rates begins at relatively low temperatures during hot weather, finds research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Researchers analysed temperature readings from the Meteorological Office and death rates from the Office of National Statistics for London between 1976 and 1996.

They found that death rates associated with heat started rising at about 19 degrees Centigrade (66 degrees Farenheit), and once above 21.5 degrees Centigrade (abou

Women who work during pregnancy are almost five times as likely to develop pre-eclampsia, concludes research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

In pre-eclampsia abnormally high blood pressure, blood poisoning, and swelling develop. Pre-eclampsia can be dangerous for both mother and child.

The blood pressure of 933 women in their early to late 20s was monitored over 24 hours while they went about their daily routines. The women were all between 18 and 24 weeks of pr

Optimism about the success of heart and lung transplants at the start of the 1990s is not supported by the evidence, shows an audit of the procedure, published in Heart.

Transplants continue to be hampered by the high death rates after surgery and a shortage of suitable donors, finds the study. Almost half of those waiting for a lung transplant will not receive one, and at least a quarter will die within two years of being listed.

All nine UK units performing heart, lung, or heart

Brass instrument makers could soon be using the latest technology to refine the manufacturing of trumpets and cornets. An improved way of taking internal measurements of musical instruments, published today in the Institute of Physics journal, Measurement Science and Technology, has been developed by scientists at the University of Edinburgh, the Open University and Smith-Watkins Brass.

In a trumpet or cornet the musical qualities of the instrument, for example the tone, response and intonat

One lump of rock is revealed as two in the distant Kuiper belt.

The stand-offish dance of two asteroids at the outer reaches of the Solar System is captivating astronomers. The two rocky objects, discovered locked in mutual orbit, could tell us about the properties of the far-flung Kuiper belt.

Christian Veillet and his team 1 studied an object called 1998 WW31 in the Kuiper belt, a sparsely populated region of space beyond the orbit of Neptune. The object w