ARB

Marburg virus disease in Angola - update

As of 29 March 2005, the Ministry of Health has reported a total of 124 cases and 117 deaths in Cabinda, Luanda and Uige. All these cases had originated in Uige Province. Ten of these cases have been laboratory confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, USA. The team from WHO, including experts from the Inter-country programme for southern Africa, the Regio...

Marburg haemorrhagic fever in Angola update

As of 20 April, the Ministry of Health in Angola has reported 266 cases of Marburg haemorrhagic fever. Of these cases, 244 were fatal. In Uige Province, which remains the epicentre of the outbreak, 253 cases, of which 233 have been fatal, were reported as of 21 April. The international response to the outbreak in Angola began one month ago, on 22 March. T...

WHO suspends Marburg work, appeals for new funds

As of 7 April, 205 cases of Marburg haemorrhagic fever have been reported in Angola. Of these, 180 have died. Zaire Province has reported its first 6 cases, bringing the number of affected provinces to seven, all concentrated in the north-western part of the country. Mobile surveillance teams in Uige were forced to suspend operations yesterday when vehicles were attacked and damaged by loc...

Deep sea algae connect ancient climate, carbon dioxide and vegetation

Assistant Professor Mark Pagani in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Yale and his colleagues mapped the first detailed history of atmospheric carbon dioxide between 45 - 25 million years ago based on stable isotopes of carbon in a National Science Foundation study reported in Science Express. "Through the energy we consume, each of us makes a contribution to increasing greenhouse...

Storing carbon to combat global warming may cause other environmental problems, study suggests

Growing tree plantations to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to mitigate global warming -- so called "carbon sequestration" -- could trigger environmental changes that outweigh some of the benefits, a multi-institutional team led by Duke University suggested in a new report. Those effects include water and nutrient depletion and increased soil salinity and acidity, said the researchers.<...

Scientific issues associated with carbon-neutral energy sources such as cellulosic ethanol

Professor Chris Somerville of the Carnegie Institution and Stanford University, explained advances in plant science research that are both needed and achievable to reduce costs and multiply current levels of production of biofuels from plant cellulose (biomass). Somerville presented his talk, "Bioenergy: The 21st Century Challenge to Plant Biologists" at the Annual Meeting of the American...

Motorola researchers develop selective sensors based on carbon nanotubes

A team of researchers from Arizona State University and Motorola Labs, the applied research arm of Motorola Inc., has developed sensors based on carbon nanotubes, microscopically small structures that posses excellent electronic properties. In early tests, the new devices detected the presence of heavy metal ions in water down to parts per trillion levels. Specifically, the researchers de...

Microbe has huge role in ocean life, carbon cycle

Researchers at Oregon State University and Diversa Corporation have discovered that the smallest free-living cell known also has the smallest genome, or genetic structure, of any independent cell - and yet it dominates life in the oceans, thrives where most other cells would die, and plays a huge role in the cycling of carbon on Earth. In nature, apparently, bigger is not always better.</...

Marine bacterium suspected to play role in global carbon and nitrogen cycles

Scientists successfully grow 'dwarf belonging to the sea' in laboratoryScientists are now revisiting, and perhaps revising, their thinking about how Archaea, an ancient kingdom of single-celled microorganisms, are involved in maintaining the global balance of nitrogen and carbon. Researchers have discovered the first Archaea known to oxidize ammonia for energy and metabolize carbon dioxide by su...

High carbon dioxide levels spur Southern pines to grow more needles

A Duke University study has found that maturing stands of pines exposed to the higher levels of carbon dioxide expected by mid-century produce more needles than those absorbing today's levels of the gas, even under drought conditions. However, the study also found that lack of soil nutrients may impose limitations in many forests. Duke graduate student Heather McCarthy will describe result...

Field tested: Grasslands won't help buffer climate change as carbon dioxide levels rise

UCLA biochemists reveal the first structural details of a family of mysterious objects called microcompartments that seem to be present in a variety of bacteria. The discovery was published Aug. 5 in the journal Science. "This is the first look at how microcompartments are built, and what the pieces look like," said Todd O. Yeates, UCLA professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and a member...

Modifications render carbon nanotubes nontoxic

In follow-on work to last year's groundbreaking toxicological study on water-soluble buckyballs, researchers at Rice University's Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN) find that water-soluble carbon nanotubes are significantly less toxic to begin with. Moreover, the research finds that nanotubes, like buckyballs, can be rendered nontoxic with minor chemical modifications.<...

Climate change will affect carbon sequestration in oceans, model shows

An Earth System model developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign indicates that the best location to store carbon dioxide in the deep ocean will change with climate change. The direct injection of carbon dioxide deep into the ocean has been suggested as one method to help control rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and mitigate the effects of glob...

Bugs expose underground carbon traffic system 10 times more important than fossil fuel burning

The flow of carbon through soil is ten times greater than the amount of carbon moved around by the burning of fossil fuel but until now how this happens was at best poorly understood. Soil was almost literally a black box to scientists interested in carbon. Now researchers at the University of Warwick have been able to shed light in that black box by getting a particular class of insects to expos...

Portable cocaine sensor developed at UC Santa Barbara

A real-time sensor for detecting cocaine –?made with inexpensive, off-the-shelf electronics –?has been developed by a team of researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Two local high school students and a Nobel laureate participated in the discovery. The potential applications of the sensor are far-reaching and include bioterrorism detection and important medical uses. Th...

Experimental vaccine protects nonhuman primates when given after exposure to Marburg virus

Using multi-disciplinary analysis that included cognitive, neurophysiologic, virologic, and molecular techniques, the team found both a low-level viral infection in the brain and immune cells that had infiltrated the brain in order to protect against the virus. "As in the rest of the body, in the brain immune cells achieve a level of control of the virus, but are unable to clear the infec...

Carbon nanotube absorption measured in worms, cancer cells

University of Michigan researchers have discovered how to measure the absorption of multi-walled carbon nanoparticles into worms and cancer cells, a breakthrough that will revolutionize scientists' understanding of how the particles impact the living environment. A team led by U-M chemical engineering professor Walter J. Weber Jr. tagged multi-walled carbon nanotubes---one of the most pro...

Carbon nanotubes that detect disease-causing mutations developed by Pitt researcher

University of Pittsburgh researcher Alexander Star and colleagues at California-based company Nanomix, Inc., have developed devices made of carbon nanotubes that can find mutations in genes causing hereditary diseases, they report in the Jan. 16 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. This method is less expensive and takes less time than conventional techniques....

Of mice, men, trees and the global carbon cycle

A team led by a University of Minnesota researcher has found a universal rule that regulates the metabolism of plants of all kinds and sizes and that may also offer a key to calculating their carbon dioxide emissions, a number that must be known precisely in order to construct valid models of global carbon dioxide cycling. Emissions of the gas occur in both plants and animals through the...

Warbling whales speak a language all their own

The songs of the humpback whale are among the most complex in the animal kingdom. Researchers have now mathematically confirmed that whales have their own syntax that uses sound units to build phrases that can be combined to form songs that last for hours. Until now, only humans have demonstrated the ability to use such a hierarchical structure of communication. The research, published onl...

Utah researchers confirm chromosome may harbor autism gene

Using technology that allows DNA from thousands of genes to be collected and surveyed on a 3 x 1½-inch chip, University of Utah medical researchers have confirmed that a region on a single chromosome probably harbors a gene that causes autism. The researchers at the U School of Medicine made the finding by tracing variations in the DNA of an extended Utah family that has a high occurrence of the...

Carbon cycle was already disrupted millions of years ago

Dutch researcher Yvonne van Breugel analysed rocks from seabeds millions of years old. Carbon occurs naturally in two stable forms; atomic mass 12 (99 percent) and atomic mass 13 (1 percent). Episodes in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods were characterised by a relatively strong increase in 12C. The analyses have shown that this was caused by a sudden large-scale release of carbon from stocks s...

For some young fish, early gene expression is a clear harbinger of fated lifestyle

As juveniles, individuals of many fish species face a developmental choice that will profoundly affect their future: whether to adopt a sedentary or migratory lifestyle. Sedentary (or "residential") individuals remain in the region of their birth, while their migratory compatriots set forth on long open-water journeys. The developmental choice of the residential versus migratory "life his...

Higher carbon dioxide, lack of nitrogen limit plant growth

Earth's plant life will not be able to "store" excess carbon from rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels as well as scientists once thought because plants likely cannot get enough nutrients, such as nitrogen, when there are higher levels of carbon dioxide, according to scientists publishing in this week's issue of the journal Nature. That, in turn, is likely to dampen the ability of plan...

Iron critical to ocean productivity, carbon uptake

A new study has found that large segments of the Pacific Ocean lack sufficient iron to trigger healthy phytoplankton growth and the absence of the mineral stresses these microscopic ocean plants, triggering them to produce additional pigments that make ocean productivity appear more robust than it really is. As a result, past interpretations of satellite chlorophyll data may be inaccurate,...

Report warns about carbon dioxide threats to marine life

Worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning are dramatically altering ocean chemistry and threatening marine organisms, including corals, that secrete skeletal structures and support oceanic biodiversity. A landmark report released today summarizes the known effects of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide on these organisms, known as marine calcifiers, and recommends future res...

UCSD study reveals how plants respond to elevated carbon dioxide

An important source of uncertainty in predictions about global warming is how plants will respond to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Now biologists at the University of California, San Diego have made significant advances toward understanding the mechanism plants use to regulate their carbon dioxide intake. The study, published in the May 1 early on-line edition of the journal Proc...

Increase in carbon dioxide emissions accelerating

New research shows the rate of increase in carbon dioxide emissions more than doubled since the 1990s. "From 2000 to 2005, the gro...

Pure carbon nanotubes pass first in vivo test

In the first experiments of their kind, researchers at Rice University and The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have determined that carbon nanotubes injected directly into the bloodstream of research lab animals cause no immediate adverse health effects and circulate for more than one hour before they are removed by the liver. The findings are from the first in vivo animal...

Human testis harbors HIV-1 in resident immune cells

Researchers have demonstrated HIV replication within resident immune cells of the testis, providing an explanation for the persistence of virus in semen even after effective highly active antiretroviral therapy. The related report by Roulet et al., “Susceptibility of human testis to human immunodeficiency virus-1 infection in situ and in vitro,?appears in the December issue of The American Journa...

Therapeutic role found for carbon monoxide

In a medical case of Jekyll and Hyde, carbon monoxide ?the highly toxic gas emitted from auto exhausts and faulty heating systems ?has proven effective in treating the symptoms of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), an extremely debilitating condition that typically leads to right heart failure and eventual death. The new findings, made in an animal study led by researchers at Beth Isra...

Soil nutrition affects carbon sequestration in forests

On December 11, USDA Forest Service (FS) scientists from the FS Southern Research Station (SRS) unit in Research Triangle Park, NC, along with colleagues from Duke University, published two papers in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) that provide a more precise understanding of how forests respond to increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), the major...

Researchers discover key mechanism by which lethal viruses Ebola and Marburg cause disease

Researchers in the Greene Infectious Disease Laboratory at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Caribbean Primate Research Center have discovered a key mechanism by which the Filoviruses, Ebola and Marburg, cause disease. The identification of an amino acid sequence in Filoviruses that results in the rapid depression of im...

Research to spotlight carbon monoxide benefits

Scientists at the University of York have won a grant of £110,000 to investigate potential uses of carbon monoxide in treating disease. Dr Jason Lynam and Dr Ian Fairlamb, of the University's Department of Chemistry, have been awarded the funding by the Leverhulme Trust for a three-year study into the use of metal compounds for the controlled release of carbon monoxide into the bloodstrea...

Lower carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fueled power plants possible with technology development

A more economical technology for a 90 percent reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fueled power plants is being developed by a chemical engineer and his colleagues at The University of Texas at Austin as part of the TXU Carbon Management Program. TXU Power, a subsidiary of TXU Corp., will donate $1.8 million to the university in support of Chemical Engineering Professor Gary Ro...

Lighting up life: Cold Spring Harbor Protocols presents tips for creating glowing plants

Just over a decade ago, biologists isolated a unique protein from jellyfish that could be inserted into other organisms—from to pigs—and cause them to radiate a brilliant green color. This green fluorescent protein (GFP) has allowed biologists to make many new discoveries regarding how living cells function. But one kingdom of life—plants—has presented special challenges to GFP det...

The longest carbon nanotubes you've ever seen

Using techniques that could revolutionize manufacturing for certain materials, researchers have grown carbon nanotubes that are the longest in the world. While still slightly less than 2 centimeters long, each nanotube is 900,000 times longer than its diameter. The fibers--which have the potential to be longer, stronger and better conductors of electricity than copper and many other materi...

Scientists close in on missing carbon sink

Forests in the United States and other northern mid- and upper-latitude regions are playing a smaller role in offsetting global warming than previously thought, according to a study appearing in Science this week. The study, which sheds light on the so-called missing carbon sink, concludes that intact tropical forests are removing an unexpectedly high proportion of carbon dioxide from the atmo...

Researchers examine carbon capture and storage to combat global warming

Carbon capture and storage, also called carbon sequestration, traps carbon dioxide after it is produced and injects it underground. The gas never enters the atmos...

New study reports hotel guests at risk from carbon monoxide poisoning

Carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning kills over 200 people every year in the United States. Although inexpensive CO detectors have been available since 1989, their use in hotels, motels and resorts is not widespread. In fact, while every guest room in the U.S. must contain a smoke detector, there is no federal mandate for CO detectors. In a study published in the July issue of the American Journal o...