Battle

UN environmental agency steps up battle against marine pollution

Coastal pollution, including plastic waste, discarded lead-acid batteries and used oils and lubricants, will come under renewed attack under a new agreement signed by the United Nations environmental agency and an international treaty body controlling hazardous wastes. The Memorandum of Understanding, signed last week in Nairobi, Kenya, by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Regional Seas Program...

Chemists synthesize molecule that helps body battle cancers, malaria

The first synthesis of QS-21A, a medicinally important molecule that helps the body battle disease, has been achieved by chemists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In clinical trials, QS-21A has been shown to significantly improve the body's immune response in vaccine therapies against aggressive diseases such as melanoma, breast cancer, small-cell lung cancer, prostate c...

Beneficial Beetles Battle Pesky Saltcedar

Tiny beetles that munch on saltcedar leaves, shoots and twig bark are helping stop the spread of this rugged, aggressive weed. Also known as tamarisk, saltcedar was brought into the United States in the 1800s to help control erosion. By the mid-1900s, however, saltcedar had become an out-of-control pest, crowding native plants, such as cottonwoods and willows, along streambanks and river channels...

A new molecule discovered in the battle between plants and disease

Scientists at Washington State University in Pullman have discovered a molecule that plays a role in the battle plants must win against bacteria and fungi that would eat them for lunch. The group led by Professor Clarence A. "Bud" Ryan isolated a small protein called Pep1 that appears to act like a hormone, signaling to the rest of the plant to raise its defenses at the first sign of an infection...

Disrupting Cocaine-memories To Battle Addiction

Novel use of genetic testing methods helped public health officials control and limit the further spread of four outbreaks of foodborne hepatitis A virus in 2003 related to the consumption of green onions, according to a detailed analysis published in the October 15 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online. The authors of the study, Joseph J. Amon, PhD, MSPH, and c...

New weapon in battle against osteoporosis

Medical researchers at the University of Bonn, working in collaboration with scientists from Israel, the USA and Britain, have identified a previously unknown regulatory mechanism in the process of bone loss. Their findings could open up new approaches to the treatment of osteoporosis. More than four million people, predominantly women, are estimated to suffer from this distressing illness in Ger...

Allergy battle could be won in five years, says scientist

Researchers, working with colleagues at St George's, University of London, are developing drugs designed to stop allergens from entering the body, so rendering them harmless. Professor David Garrod said the research ?recently shortlisted for the Northwest Regional Development Agency's Bionow Project of the Year ?takes a completely new approach to the treatment and prevention of allergies....

Distinguishing friend from foe in the battle against cancer

The latest generation of cancer chemotherapeutic drugs specifically targets mutant enzymes or "oncoproteins" that have run amok and now promote uncontrolled cell growth. As promising as these drugs are, cancer cells with their backs against the wall have the tendency to fight back. A major goal of cancer research is to frustrate these acts of cellular desperation. In a forthcoming issue of...

Scientists find genes involved in the battle between Hessian flies and wheat

Wheat has ways to battle the tiny, red wormlike insects that nibble on the plant's leaves and can destroy crops worldwide, but the Hessian fly larvae that survive eventually evolve methods to overcome plant defenses. Purdue University and USDA-Agriculture Research Service scientists trying to thwart the insect have identified Hessian fly genes that nullify toxins that wheat produces to pro...