HIV Patients May Be at Risk of Heart Problems When Taking Protease Inhibitor Drugs
A widely-used class of drugs that keep the HIV-virus infection from progressing to AIDS may cause serious and potentially lethal heart rhythm disturbances in some patients. The finding of a Mayo Clinic-led investigation appears in the current edition of The Lancet. In collaboration with colleagues from the HIV Program of Hennepin County Medical Center, Minneapolis; the University of Minn...To sea or not to sea: When it comes to salmon sex, size sometimes doesn't matter
The ones that stay and the ones that stray are biological puzzles among Pacific salmon, of whom the vast majority ?but not all ?travel thousands of miles to sea and back to the streams where they hatched. There are chinook salmon populations in Idaho in which an occasional male stays put and matures when only 6 inches long ?that is, he's able to fertilize eggs at even that diminutive size,...Rhesus monkeys can assess the visual perspective of others when competing for food
Researchers Jonathan Flombaum and Dr. Laurie Santos, both from Yale University, have found that rhesus monkeys consider whether a competitor can or cannot see them when trying to steal food. Working with semi-free-ranging rhesus monkeys on the island of Cayo Santiago in Puerto Rico, Flombaum and Santos set up a food competition game: Lone monkeys were approached by two human "competitors....Immune system's distress signal tells bacteria when to strike back
The human opportunistic pathogen, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, has broken the immune system's code, report researchers from the University of Chicago, enabling the bacteria to recognize when its host is most vulnerable and to launch an attack before the weakened host can muster its defenses. In the 29 July 2005 issue of Science, the researchers show how this lethal organism detects interferon-g...When it comes to cell entry, being average has its advantages
When it comes to gaining entry into cells, size matters. A team from Brown University and the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research has created a model that explains how viruses and other bioparticles slip inside cells without a special protein coating called clathrin. The secret, it seems, is to be average. Mid-sized nanomaterials ?about 27 to 30 nanometers in diameter, or about 1,000...When innovation gets off track
What's caught my investigator's eye most recently is the flurry of news about Acela, the fast train service along the Eastern Co...When its parts pull together, Wisconsin can tell a compelling economic story
MILWAUKEE If you ask visitors from Spain, Lithuania or Hong Kong what they know about Wisconsin, chances are good the answers will have something to do with beer, brats, cheese or the Green Bay Packers. But how much would they know about our biotechnology? Not much, if anything. However, its vital to Wisconsins economic future that people far outside our borders learn more about the sta...Reduce Errors and Save Time When Setting Up PCRs
Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) setup typically requiresthawing of the various reagents, setting up a master mix,then distributing the mix to the individual reaction tubes. The various handling steps can cause pipetting mistakes and experimental erro...Maintaining High Sensitivity when Working with Small-Volume Samples
20 L, 50 L, 250 L, or 1 mL <P > <br >enzymes amino acids <P > <br>photon-counting <P >Samples can be valuable. Either you dont want to waste them, or you may not have very much with which to start. Biological prot...When raising capital, why use a Private Placement Memorandum?
We are frequently asked whether it is necessary to use a private placement memorandum (also referred to as a PPM or an offerin...What happens when Medications go wrong?
Have you ever wondered how the dosages of drugs are determined? How drugs are being tested? On whom are these tested and who tests them? What happens if the dosages are unwittingly missed? Or worse still if harmful drugs are tested on unwitting patients what happens? Who answers these questions? In a shocking revelation, a study in the U.S.A. has revealed that in many instances about a th...What happens when Asthmatics consume Aspirin?
One of the commonest and most troublesome disease affecting millions world wide is asthma. Asthmatics not only suffer from the usual symptoms of the disease but they are unfortunate in more ways than one. It is common knowledge that asthmatics are warned to stay away from aspirin and other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. What happens when they take aspirin? And further more if cons...Children suffer the most when parents divorce
A recent study conducted in the United States of America, says that children suffer the most when parents divorce. Further more when parents prolong an unhappy marriage and avoid a divorce for the sake of children, instead of doing the children good, it will only do more damage to the kids, the authors of the study say.Dr. Allan Booth and Dr. Paul R. Arnato of Pennsylvania State Universit...Watch your weight when pregnant
Fat women are more likely for Cesarean delivery, says Dr.Bell from Duke University NC. Years ago, anesthesia had been one of the major causes of maternal mortality. Pregnancy and obesity both make it difficult to breathe under general anesthesia, so a woman's risk is doubled when the two conditions are combined.// Bell and colleagues studied more than 3000 women and calculated e...When Volume Matters, Immunoassay Systems Deliver
Although new and innovative technology has enabled more and more laboratory testing to occur at the bedside or physicians office, the central laboratory is hardly threatened with extinction. National volume data suggest that medium and large labs are busier than ever before, and the huge range of their capabilities, gold standard reliability and ability to handle very large volumes of tests a...