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People in Georgia’s Dodge and Bleckley counties have for years picked up small pieces of natural glass called “Georgiaites,” which were produced by an unknown asteroid or comet impact millions of years ago. Just where these small, translucent green objects came from, however, was unclear.

Now researchers at the University of Georgia, studying a kaolin mine in Warren County, have found a layer of tiny grains, which indicate that the grains and the Georgiaites were products o

Thanks to new screening tools, and some luck, researchers at the University of Chicago have discovered three unrelated compounds that inhibit the two toxins – edema factor and lethal factor — that have made anthrax one of the most feared of potential bioterror agents.

In the August 2004 issue of the journal Chemistry and Biology, the researchers report that they used a novel screening technique, developed at the University, to find a small molecule that prevents edema factor from

First-ever side-by-side comparison of PCB-laden sediments taken from separate, contaminated rivers

One of Mother Nature’s most promising weapons to break down persistent, toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) is bacteria. Now, a study by Carnegie Mellon University scientists provides convincing evidence that how quickly a PCB gets eaten and what it becomes depends on where it settles. Using DNA fingerprinting, the Carnegie Mellon team discovered distinct bacterial populations in th

Thanks to a productive collaboration between clinical and basic scientists, researchers from the University of Chicago have identified the first genetic cause of one of the most common birth defects of the brain, Dandy-Walker malformation (DWM). Infants with this disorder, about one in 10,000 births, have a small, displaced cerebellum and other brain abnormalities that can reduce coordination, impair mental function and cause hydrocephalus.

In the September, 2004, issue of Nature G

The dendritic cells act as the body’s sentries, standing guard around the clock. As soon as they detect a potential enemy, they alert the T cells, whose role is to defend the body.

At the Institut Curie, CNRS researchers in an Inserm laboratory have filmed the encounter of dendritic cells and T cells. They have shown that this “rendez-vous”, which is indispensable for the activation of the immune system, cannot take place in the absence of the proteins Rac 1 and 2. Published in the

C. elegans model helps identify protein linked to long QT syndrome – Could help lead to development of drugs that don’t cause calcium channel block

The worm C. elegans seems an unlikely candidate for studies related to cardiac arrhythmias. After all, the microscopic organism doesn’t even have a heart.

That fact did not deter Christina I. Petersen, Ph.D., research assistant professor of Anesthesiology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Petersen and colleagues, includ