means

New vaccine means bye-bye to bacteria in the lung

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a bacterium that can cause respiratory tract infections, which can be life threatening in patients who have cystic fibrosis. It is therefore important to develop a vaccine against this pathogen. Appearing online on 1 April 2005 in advance of print publication of the May issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Ronald Crystal and colleagues from Cornell University...

'Underground' tunnels discovered as means for communication between immune system cells

University of Pittsburgh researchers first to report function of tunneling nanotubules Immune system cells are connected to each other by an extensive network of tiny tunnels that, like a building's hidden pneumatic tube system, are used to shoot signals to distant cells. This surprising discovery, being reported by two University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers in the Septem...

One small step means giant leap for spinal cord research

A new device developed at the University of Toronto that stimulates the muscles of patients with spinal cord injuries helps to increase walking function in those whose condition is not expected to improve. U of T researchers have found that functional electrical stimulation (FES), a process that sends controlled bursts of electricity through the skin and into muscles, can help patients im...

New possibilities to fight pests with biological means

Corn plants emit a cocktail of scents when they are attacked by certain pests, such as a caterpillar known as the Egyptian cotton leaf worm. Parasitic wasps use these plant scents to localize the caterpillar and deposit their eggs on it, so that their offspring can feed on the caterpillar. Soon after, the caterpillar dies and the plant is relieved from its attacker. In the case of corn, o...

Rare Chinese frogs communicate by means of ultrasonic sound

First came word that a rare frog (Amolops tormotus) in China sings like a bird, then that the species produces very high-pitch ultrasonic sounds. Now scientists say that these concave-eared torrent frogs also hear and respond to the sounds. The findings, to appear in the March 16 issue of Nature, represent the first documented case of an amphibian being able to communicate like bats, whale...

A 'traffic light' for neurons means 'go' for improving brain research

Every thought, feeling and action originates from the electrical signals emitted by diverse brain cells enmeshed in a tangle of circuits. At this fundamental level, scientists struggle to explain the mind. Worse yet, they have lacked tools to understand what's going wrong in patients with ailments such as depression or Parkinson's disease. New Stanford-led research published in the April 5 issue...