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Using algorithms to fight Dengue Fever

Written by Thomas Hesselberg
Tuesday, 18 March 2008
The largest markets for medical drugs are found in the Western countries and therefore both private medical companies and public universities and funding bodies mainly pour money into the research of diseases found predominantly in Western countries, while equally dangerous and prevalent diseases from developing countries has been neglected. However, this is slowly changing with the arrival of medical journals dedicated to this field, such as the open-access PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. In the latest Issue, a research group comprising of scientists from the Novartis Institute of Tropical Diseases and from various public institutions in Singapore and Vietnam has published a study on Dengue Fever. Be first to comment this article \| Add as favourites (34) \| Quote this article on your site \| Views: 2141 \| E-mail
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Written by Thomas Hesselberg
Tuesday, 04 March 2008
Navigation in animals has puzzled people for centuries and still provides challenges for scientists. How for instance can a Monarch butterfly with a brain weighing less than 0.02 grams find its way to its overwintering site more than 4,000 km away? Or how can the Arctic Tern circumnavigate the globe with a precision better than human navigators before the invention of the GPS system? We know now that one of the most widely used methods of navigation in the animal kingdom is to use the Earth’s magnetic field as a compass. This method is predominantly found in birds, fish and insects, but has also recently been demonstrated in bats. However, questions remain as to how the animals detect the magnetic field. Scientists from Princeton University and Caltech in the United States have investigated this in the Big Brown Bat (Eptesicus fuscus). Be first to comment this article \| Add as favourites (37) \| Quote this article on your site \| Views: 1360 \| E-mail
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Sneaking behaviour is risky for spider males

Written by Thomas Hesselberg
Sunday, 17 February 2008
The poisonous redback spider (Latrodectus hasselti) showing its characteristic red pattern on the abdomen. Photo from Wikipedia. In the mating game everything is allowed. A sneaking strategy can be observed in a wide range of species. It is usually smaller subdominant males that quickly seize opportunities to mate with unguarded females, for instance when dominant males are fighting among each other for access to the female. Such a strategy can be risky though as the dominant males, for obvious reasons, are not very tolerant towards sneaking males. However, scientists have discovered that for the redback spider (Latrodectus hasselti), the danger does not come from other males but from the female. Be first to comment this article \| Add as favourites (27) \| Quote this article on your site \| Views: 932 \| E-mail
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Cancer risk boosted by overweight

Written by Dr. H. P. Bustami
Sunday, 17 February 2008
Scientists from the university of Manchester (England) and Bern (Switzerland) investigated the coherence between overweight and cancer risk. They compared people with normal weight with persons with overweight. The study also considered different ethnic backgrounds. An alarming boost in breast cancer, cancer of kidney, cancer of the colon, skin cancer and uterine cancer could directly be correlated to overweigt. Be first to comment this article \| Add as favourites (36) \| Quote this article on your site \| Views: 1544 \| E-mail
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The spread of the killer virus

Written by Thomas Hesselberg
Wednesday, 06 February 2008
Transmission electron microscopy image of the influenza virus. Magnified around 100,000 times. Courtesy of the Public Health Image Library. The risk of a deadly pandemic virus has become frightening real in recent years with the SARS and the avian flu scares. Imagine a virus that develops at some continent, from there spreads to the globe and within half a year kills more than 25 million people worldwide…Unfortunately this is not pure imagination. It can happen and it has happened. The 1918 flu pandemic (or the Spanish flu as it commonly known as) first appeared on March the 4th, 1918 in Kansas, USA. In August a more virulent strain simultaneous appeared in Boston, Sierra Leone, France and Spain. When the pandemic was finally over in June 1920, most regions including remote Pacific Islands had been affected and world wide between 50 and 100 million people, including healthy young adults had died from the flu. The main reason for this was an extremely high infection rate of 50%. Be first to comment this article \| Add as favourites (38) \| Quote this article on your site \| Views: 1590 \| E-mail
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Climate change accelerates

Written by Dr. H. P. Bustami
Sunday, 03 February 2008
Climate change is happening, now and during the last century. Scientists from the university of Bern, Switzerland, now published new data about the speed of anthropogenic climate change. They compared CO₂, N₂0 and CH₄ (the most important gases responsible for greenhouse effect) over a period of the last 20.000 years. They used antarctic ice cores containing air locks of the monitored period. The investigation showed that the slopes of the global warming gases never before were so alarming high in the last 16.000 years as during the 20th century. Be first to comment this article \| Add as favourites (36) \| Quote this article on your site \| Views: 1584 \| E-mail
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Computers are still far away from matching our ability to visually recognise objects

Written by Thomas Hesselberg
Sunday, 27 January 2008
The progress in computer technology within the past decades has been absolutely astounding. The capabilities of our personal computers have been growing exponentially (see Moore’s law) and the computer can perform calculations much faster than the human brain. However, in many other areas the computer is no match for the human brain. Especially the function of the visual system in humans is impressive. Several computer programs have been made that can identify and recognise visual inputs and although they are useful, for instance, in recognising characters and numbers on invoices and documents, human verification is often needed, especially, when variations are introduced in for instance hand written documents. Scientists from MIT in the United States in America have looked at a related problem. That of visually recognising objects viewed from different angles with variations in background and lighting. Such a task has proved very difficult for the computer while the brain solves it effortless. Be first to comment this article \| Add as favourites (44) \| Quote this article on your site \| Views: 1366 \| E-mail
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New insights into Parkinson Disease and Sclerosis.

Written by Thomas Hesselberg
Monday, 21 January 2008
Parkinson Diease and Amytrophic Lateral Sclerosis are caused by degeneration of neurons with long axon projects. Parts of the axon guidance pathway genome can be used to predict the susceptibility and onset of the diseases. Source PLoS Biology Vol. 4, No. 2, e29 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0040029. Parkinson disease (PD) affects the central nervous system and results in deterioration of motor and speech skills. Usually visible tremors and lack of fine motor control appears in the later stages. Parkinson disease mainly affects elderly people. Around one in 500 will catch the disease, which at the moment is untreatable. However, research to find a cure has been intensified in the last decades. An important aspect is to be able to predict the onset of the disease. Recently an American research group found that variation in some nucleotides in the genome of the axon guidance pathways rocan predict both the bearer’s susceptibility to PD and probable age of onset the disease. Now the same group has used this approach on another neurologic disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Be first to comment this article \| Add as favourites (40) \| Quote this article on your site \| Views: 1367 \| E-mail
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Chronic pancreatitis caused by a genetic mutation

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