Science News

By: David Bradley

Brain distinction - An MRI study has shown variations in patients with different types of dementia, according to researchers in Japan. They found that observation of atrophy, shrinkage, of different parts of the brain - the amygdala or anterior entorhinal region - could be important in providing a definitive diagnosis of very mild dementia and distinguishing it from normal elderly effects.

As sure as eggs is eggs - Most bird news seems to be bad news at the moment, so it's interesting to learn of some chicken and egg research being carried out in Taiwan that is using Fourier transform infra-red (FTIR) spectroscopy to analyse the structure of hen's eggshells. The work could provide information that will allow researchers to crack the problem of what to do with the vast quantities of waste shells produced by the food industry.

Mueller light - German researchers have constructed an artificial cell using an inorganic macromolecule, a spherical polyoxymolybdate cluster, rather than the more usual organic and protein components associated with cell membranes. NMR played a key role in tracking their progress towards this system and has shed let on the properties of the resulting complex.

Microbial bioremedy - Cultures of the microbe Mycobacterium vanbaalenii strain PYR-1 can break down the carcinogenic polyaromatic hydrocarbon benz[a]anthracene, according to US researchers. The team used UV-Vis spectroscopy and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to determine how the PAH is degraded.

Improved ovarian cancer detection - US researchers have turned to surface-enhanced Raman scattering to help them spot a biochemical marker for the early stages of ovarian cancer. The technique, which involves using SERS-active silver nanoparticles to detect various forms of lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) could simplify detection of the disease and at the same time help reduce false positives and false negatives.

X-rays for improved antibiotics - A high-resolution X-ray structure of the bacterial ribosome, which translates genes into proteins, could help explain how certain antibiotics work and might allow drug designers to develop new types that side-step drug resistance.