sterilising produce: A new method to sterilise fruits and vegetables has been developed, which literally sucks life out of germs. It could replace ozone-depleting chemicals, like methyl bromide, which are currently used to sterilise fresh produce. Called metabolic stress disinfection, the technique was developed by Manuel Lagunas-Solar and his team …
the activities exhibited by a human body and other organisms are regulated by a biological clock that is encoded in genes. When there are no clues available from the external world (such as sunrise and sunset), the biological clock enables the body to count time in units of 24 hours. …
MANY girls in the us are starting puberty far earlier than is widely considered normal, according to a recently published report of the first large-scale, multi-racial study conducted by Marcia E Herman-Giddens, professor of maternal and child health at the Chapel Hill School of Public Health, University of North Carolina. …
THAT the administration of the female hormone oestrogen to post-menopausal women prevents the tribulations associated with the painful process of menopause, has been common knowledge since the late 60s. Many women and their physicians considered this hormone as the closest thing in modern medicine to aIn elixir ofyouth, a drug …
SCIENTISTS in the US have isolated a gene that controls the biological clock in mice. With this, they have moved closer to understanding the cause of a host of human ailments, 'from jet lag to sleep disorders related to aging, to manic depressive illness. Joseph S Takahashi and colleagues from …
SCIENTISTs at the MRc Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, claim to have unearthed a significant relationship between calcium present in our bodies and cellular responses. Calcium plays an important role in various physio -biological functions ranging from normal development to illness and cell death. Besides, the calcium atom …
a new biotechnology device - bioluminescense - is now being exploited worldwide to detect microbial contamination in industries ranging from cosmetics to foodstuffs and to pharmaceuticals. About 2.5 billion such tests were globally performed last year, costing about us $4.14 billion, says Forest and Sullivan, the market research organisation in …
A RECENT piece of work by Fen-Biao Gao and colleagues at University College London shows that oligodendrocytes, cells that are responsible for the insulation that protects vertebrate nerve cells, do count time but not in terms of the number of cell divisions. Earlier studies had shown that when isolated from …
THE building of a multiccllular organism requires an intricate network of signals going to and fro between the cells that constitute the organism. Traditionally, these signals are studied in terms of the effects they cause, in terms of their molecular constitution and in the manner in which they are sensed. …
with over 100 million people worldwide, who are officially certified by doctors as obese (body mass index of over 30), management of body weight is as much a nightmare for physicians as it is a challenge for medical scientists. The phenomenal ability of the human body to store fat, an …
stomach disorders, respiratory illnesses and other inflammatory malfunctions - caused due to the entry of pathogens through the linings of the gut (the intestine), the tonsils, nose and lungs - are common in India. So is the knowledge of their causative factors. What most of us are unaware of is …
As the immune system is designed to distinguish 'self' from 'foreign' and reject the latter, intestinal immunity also has a role in preventing exaggerated immune responses (allergy) by discriminating between the two. For example, touching the leaf of the Japanese sumac tree, used in making lacquer, can cause severe skin …
While it is common knowledge that physiological reasons - a good meal, an inherent biological clock, or fatigue - induce sleep, how did sleep evolve in the first place? An interesting theory on the evolutionary origin of sleep, that relates this nodding habit to gut immunity, has been published recently …
Oral vaccines are convenient to administer, and are preferred to injections. But a more important consideration for scientists while developing any vaccine is to ensure long-term protection. The key to prolonged immune protection by vaccination lies in the body's ability to develop an 'immuno-logical memory' - which means that the …
A team of researchers from Austria report that the lingering smell from garlic-eaters comes not from the plant, but from the chemicals in the blood produced by a change in the body's metabolism. The researchers led by Werner Lindinger found that of the several volatile compounds
the metamorphosis of a child into an adolescent is no longer a natural wonder as scien-tists have found new insights into the body mechanism, which provide clues to the onset of puberty. Researchers of the University of Califor-nia propose that leptin (a protein secreted by the adipose cells), famed for …
It is very well known that alcohol and cigarettes are ancient companions, but the reason for the link is not well understood. Scientists recently discovered that both these chemicals affect the same protein in the brain, explaining why alcoholics are seven times as likely to also be heavy smokers when …
Janalee Cadwell of the University of Oklahoma, US, has been investigating South American frogs whose poisonous secretions are used to tip arrows and darts. Her researches have led to the conclusion that these amphibians are toxic not because of some biochemical synthesis within them, but because they eat a deadly …
