UCIFri, 22 Jun 2007 11:14 UTC
Using mathematical theory, UC Irvine scientists have shed light on one of cancer's most troubling puzzles - how cancer cells can alter their own genetic makeup to accelerate tumor growth. The discovery shows for the first time why this change occurs, providing insight into how cancerous tumors thrive and a potential foundation for future cancer treatments.
UCI mathematicians Natalia Komarova, Alexander Sadovsky and Frederic Wan looked at cancer from the point of view of a tumor and asked: What can a tumor do to optimize its own growth? They focused on the phenomenon of genetic instability, a common feature of cancer in which cells mutate at an abnormally fast rate. These mutations can cause cancer cells to grow, or they can cause the cells to die.
The scientists found that cancerous tumors grow best when they are very unstable in early stages of development and become stable in later stages. In other words, tumors thrive when cancerous cells mutate to speed up malignant transformation, and then stay that way by turning off the mutation rate.
Accidental damage to an undersea fiber-optics cable left millions of people without Internet service in five Latin American countries, the cable's owner said Thursday.
In Colombia, as many as 45 percent of Internet users were left with limited or no connection. Problems were also reported in Panama, Venezuela, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
AFPFri, 22 Jun 2007 10:29 UTC
A hacker penetrated an unclassified Pentagon email system, prompting authorities to take as many 1,500 accounts offline, defense officials said Thursday.
"Elements of the OSD unclassified e-mail system were taken offline yesterday afternoon due to a detected penetration," US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, using an acronym for the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
"A variety of precautionary measures are being taken. We expect the system to be online again very soon," Gates said.
Between 1,000 and 1,500 users of the system were taken offline, a defense official said.
On Wednesday, a congressional panel disclosed that hackers also have succeeded in penetrating computers at the Department of Homeland Security, the lead government agency in providing security against cyber attack.
Collaborative research between scientists in the UK and Germany (published in this week's Nature Materials) has led to a breakthrough in the understanding of the formation of ice. Dr Angelos Michaelides of the London Centre for Nanotechnology (formerly of the Fritz-Haber Institut der Max-Planck Gesellschaft in Berlin) and Professor Karina Morgenstern of the Leibniz University Hannover have combined experimental observations with theoretical modelling to reveal with unprecedented resolution the structures of the smallest pieces of ice that form on hydrophobic metal surfaces.
The results provide information about the process of ice nucleation at a molecular level and take science a significant step closer to understanding the mysterious process through which ice forms around microscopic dust particles in the upper atmosphere. Because this is the basis of cloud formation, knowing how different particles promote ice formation is crucial for climate change models.
The authors began by cooling down a metallic surface to 5 degrees above absolute zero (around - 268 Celsius) at which temperature it was possible to "trap" and obtain images of the smallest possible pieces (hexamers) of ice using a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM). The hexamer - the simplest and most basic "snow flake" - is composed of just six water molecules. Other ice nanoclusters containing seven, eight and nine molecules were also imaged.
The extinction of many large mammals at the end of the Ice Age may have packed an even bigger punch than scientists have realized. To the list of victims such as woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats, a Smithsonian-led team of scientists has added one more: a highly carnivorous form of wolf that lived in Alaska, north of the ice sheets.
Wolves were generally thought to have survived the end-Pleistocene extinction relatively unscathed. But this previously unrecognized type of wolf appears to have vanished without a trace some 12,000 years ago.
The study, which will be published in the June 21 online issue of Current Biology, combined genetic and chemical analyses with more conventional paleontological study of the morphology, or form, of the fossilized skeletal remains. This multifaceted approach allowed the researchers to trace the ancient wolves' genetic relationships with modern-day wolves, as well as understand their role in the ancient ecosystem.
"Being able to say all of those things - having a complete picture - is really unusual," said lead author Jennifer Leonard, a research associate with the Smithsonian Genetics Program, and currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.
The Homeland Security Department, the lead U.S. agency for fighting cyber threats, suffered more than 800 hacker break-ins, virus outbreaks and other computer security problems over two years, senior officials acknowledged to Congress.
In one instance, hacker tools for stealing passwords and other files were found on two internal Homeland Security computer systems. The agency's headquarters sought forensic help from the department's own Security Operations Center and the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team it operates with Carnegie Mellon University.
In other cases, computer workstations in the Coast Guard and the Transportation Security Administration were infected with malicious software detected trying to communicate with outsiders; laptops were discovered missing; and agency Web sites suffered break-ins.
Scheme of experiments.
Investigations of the influence of GM-soya (Roundup Ready, RR) on Wistar rats and first posterity were performed. Rat females received additionally to the diet the soya flour (5-7 g for each rat) two weeks before mating, during mating, pregnancy and lactation: traditional soya and GM-soya (Roundup Ready, RR). Group of rats, which received only diet without any food additives, was considered as the control group. The weight, size and mortality of rat kids were analyzed.
Paul Rincon
BBC NewsWed, 20 Jun 2007 22:01 UTC
The European Space Agency (Esa) is seeking volunteers for a simulated human trip to Mars, in which six crew spend 17 months in an isolation tank.
They will live and work in a series of interlocked modules at a research institute in Moscow.
Once the hatches are closed, the crew's only contact with the outside world is a radio link to "Earth" with a realistic delay of many minutes.
"Nothing there," is what Case Western Reserve University physicists concluded about black holes after spending a year working on complex formulas to calculate the formation of new black holes. In nearly 13 printed pages with a host of calculations, the research may solve the information loss paradox that has perplexed physicists for the past 40 years.
Case physicists Tanmay Vachaspati, Dejan Stojkovic and Lawrence M. Krauss report in the article, "Observation of Incipient Black Holes and the Information Loss Problem," that has been accepted for publication by Physical Review D.
"It's complicated and very complex," noted the researchers, regarding both the general problem and their particular approach to try to solve it.
The question that the physicists set out to solve is: what happens once something collapses into a black hole" If all information about the collapsing matter is lost, it defies the laws of quantum physics. Yet, in current thinking, once the matter goes over the event horizon and forms a black hole, all information about it is lost.
GizmagWed, 20 Jun 2007 14:14 UTC
From side air bags to anti-lock braking systems and traction control, technology has delivered a raft of safety enhancing features for motor vehicles, but sometimes accidents occur because of much simpler deficiencies in our driving preparedness - namely our choice of shoes. This issue is especially relevant to women's shoes where the latest fashion may not be the ideal choice when it comes to controlling a motor vehicle. The solution offered by UK based car insurance company Sheilas' Wheels is to combine two types of shoe into one - a safe, flat driving shoe that transforms into a stylish pair of heels at the a push of a button.
Though not the first time we have encountered the concept of a convertible high heel, the Sheila Driving Heel' is designed specifically to give women a safe flat when in transit and a fashionable heel at the end of the journey. The design seeks to eliminate several deficiencies caused by driving in heels including their lack of grip, tendency to get caught under the pedal and the uncomfortable driving position that results from wearing them. The flat shoe option lessens pressure on the knee and lower back to improve comfort behind the wheel and a discrete tread on the sole aids grip on the pedals.
