news 2012

Today, Sunday 30 December at 7pm, Cambridge University's Chris Smith and his fellow 'Naked Scientists' will present Science Night, which dedicates the first hour of the programme to examining some of the cyber security dangers currently facing technology users. In the first feature, the team describe just how easy it is to recover previously deleted items from hardware.

One of the world's most devastating diseases is malaria, responsible for at least a million deaths annually, despite global efforts to combat it. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania , working with collaborators from Drexel University, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and Johns Hopkins University, have identified a protein in human blood platelets that points to a powerful new weapon against the disease.

Calpain, a calcium-regulated enzyme, is essential to a host of cellular processes, but can cause severe problems in its overactivated state. It has been implicated as a factor in muscular dystrophy, AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, and cancer. As such, finding and exploiting calpain inhibitors is an important area of research.

When trying to determine the root cause of a person's dementia, using an MRI can effectively and non-invasively screen patients for Alzheimer's disease or Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration (FTLD), according to a new study by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

" Research published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that some bacterial cells carry a molecular 'suicide complex' to kill themselves in the event of lethal infection by viral parasites. Such 'altruistic suicide' prevents or limits viral replication and protects the rest of the bacterial population from subsequent infection.

Rare DNA faults in two genes have been strongly linked to bowel cancer by Oxford University researchers, who sequenced the genomes of people from families with a strong history of developing the disease. The researchers sequenced the entire DNA genomes of 20 people from families with a strong history of bowel cancer.

Scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have identified two molecules that play an important role in the survival and production of nerve cells in the brain, including nerve cells that produce dopamine. The discovery, which is published Chemical Biology, may be significant in the long term for the treatment of several diseases, such as Parkinson's disease.

Current thinking on how the Toxoplasma gondii parasite invades its host is incorrect, according to a study published today describing a new technique to knock out genes. The findings could have implications for other parasites from the same family, including malaria, and suggest that drugs that are currently being developed to block this invasion pathway may be unsuccessful.

A Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Association funded research project at UCL has given new insights into the structure and function of an MND gene called C9ORF72. The work is published in the journal Scientific Reports . Pietro Fratta (UCL Institute of Neurology) is first author of the paper which successfully identifies the structure of the six-letter genetic mistake in C9ORF72.

I am delighted that Tavaré will be leading the Cambridge Institute. One of my main aims in Cambridge is to cross-fertilise different disciplines and Simon's work applying mathematical approaches to understanding cancer is a fantastic example of how powerful this can be." —Patrick Maxwell, Regius Professor of Physic and Head of the School of Clinical Medicine at the University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge and Cancer Research UK have appointed Simon Tavaré to be the next director of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute.

A team of scientists led by King's College London has identified a particular set of genes that interact with one another to regulate pain in humans, and found that differences in these genes may influence people's sensitivity to pain. The study, published today in PLoS Genetics , adds to a growing body of evidence that particular genes are involved in chronic pain and highlights this pathway as a potential target for more effective pain relief treatments for patients.

Scientists at Karolinska Institutet, in collaboration with colleagues in Germany and the Netherlands, have identified a previously unknown group of nerve cells in the brain. The nerve cells regulate cardiovascular functions such as heart rhythm and blood pressure. It is hoped that the discovery, which is published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, will be significant in the long term in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases in humans.

The pain relief offered by cannabis varies greatly between individuals, a brain imaging study carried out at the University of Oxford suggests. The researchers found that an oral tablet of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, tended to make the experience of pain more bearable, rather than actually reduce the intensity of the pain.

Researchers have uncovered a genetic basis for fundamental differences between humans and other vertebrates that could also help explain why humans are susceptible to diseases not found in other species. Scientists have wondered why vertebrate species, which look and behave very differently from one another, nevertheless share very similar repertoires of genes.

Until today, a map from 1876 has been the backbone for our understanding of global biodiversity. Thanks to advances in modern technology and data on more than 20,000 species, scientists have now produced a next-generation map depicting the organization of life on Earth. Published online in Science Express , the new map provides fundamental information regarding the diversity of life on our planet and is of major significance for future biodiversity research.

A new study of the brain anatomy of therizinosaurs, plant-eating dinosaurs that lived during the Cretaceous Period, has revealed interesting links with their notorious meat-eating 'cousins' Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor . An international team of scientists, including PhD student Stephan Lautenschlager and Emily Rayfield of the University of Bristol, found that the senses of smell, hearing and balance were well developed in therizinosaurs and might have affected or benefited from an enlarged forebrain.

The protein kinase Akt is a key regulator of cell growth, proliferation, metabolism, survival, and death. New work on Akt's role in cancer stem cell biology from the lab of senior author Honglin Zhou, MD, PhD and Weihua Li, co-first author, both from the Center for Resuscitation Sciences, Department of Emergency Medicine , Perelman School of Medicine , University of Pennsylvania, and Xiaowei Xu, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine , appears in Molecular Cell .

Our eyes may be our window to the world, but how do we make sense of the thousands of images that flood our retinas each day? Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that the brain is wired to put in order all the categories of objects and actions that we see. They have created the first interactive map of how the brain organizes these groupings.

Scientists have shown how the common fruit fly Drosophila, which possess similar electrophysiological and pharmacological properties as humans, could now be used to screen and develop new therapies for alcohol-related behavioural disorders and some genetic diseases. Researchers from the University's School of Physiology and Pharmacology have been using the fruit fly to study the effects of alcohol on a particular gene found within potassium channels in the brain.

Men with more brothers than sisters may have faster swimming sperm and are more likely to have increased fertility according to new research carried out by experts from the University of Sheffield. Scientists from the University of Sheffield in collaboration with researchers at Brown University in America found a correlation between the swimming speed of a man's sperm and the number of brothers he has.