Daily non-political popular news in brief.

Evidence of glaciation in 'super greenhouse' world

01-10-2008 · EurekAlert!

US and European scientists have found evidence that glaciers existed during the "super greenhouse" world when it was so warm that alligators lived in the Arctic.

Keywords: evidence, glaciation, super, greenhouse, world

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Researchers find origin of 'breathable' atmosphere half a billion years ago
10-28-2007 · EurekAlert!
Ohio State University geologists and their colleagues have uncovered evidence of when Earth may have first supported an oxygen-rich atmosphere similar to the one we breathe today. The study suggests that upheavals in the earth's crust initiated a kind of reverse-greenhouse effect 500 million years ago that cooled the world's oceans, spawned giant plankton blooms and sent a burst of oxygen into the atmosphere.
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QBI scientist looks at why stroke causes vision problems
06-05-2007 · EurekAlert!
A University of Queensland scientist at the Queensland Brain Institute hasuncovered evidence that could help to explain why some stroke patients have troublemaintaining a stable image of their visual world when they make eye movements.
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AGU revises position on climate change
01-25-2008 · EurekAlert!
A statement newly released by the world's largest scientific society of Earth and space scientists -- the American Geophysical Union, or AGU -- updates the organization's position on climate change: the evidence for it, potential consequences from it, and how to respond to it. The statement is the first revision since 2003 of the climate-change position of the AGU, which has a membership of 50,000 researchers, teachers, and students in 137 countries.
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Scientists track remarkable 'breathing' in nanoporous materials
04-02-2007 · EurekAlert!
Scientists all over the world are participating in the quest of new materials with properties suitable for the environmentally friendly and economically feasible separation, recovery, and reuse of vapours and greenhouse gases. A team of scientists from France, UK and the ESRF have recently discovered an unprecedented giant and reversible swelling of nanoporous materials with exceptional properties: huge flexibility and profound selectivity.
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Seismolgists get handle on heat flow deep in Earth
11-23-2006 · EurekAlert!
Earth's interior is not a benign world that only stores the geologic history of our planet. Geologists now see the inner Earth as a dynamic environment filled with exotic materials and substances roiling under intense heat and pressures. The latest evidence of this dynamic inner Earth is revealed in a recent series of measurements that peered deep within Earth, halfway to its center.
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Proteases cause pain in irritable bowel syndrome
02-15-2007 · EurekAlert!
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common gastrointestinal disorder in the developed world. It is characterized by altered bowel function, abdominal discomfort, and pain. However, there are few effective treatments for IBS, in part because the molecular mechanisms underlying the disease symptoms have not been well defined. But now, researchers from the University of Calgary have provided evidence that serine proteases and PAR2 might provide new therapeutic targets for the treatment of IBS.
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Ancient rocks show how young Earth avoided becoming giant snowball
02-05-2007 · EurekAlert!
A greenhouse gas that has become the bane of modern society may have saved Earth from completely freezing over early in the planet's history, according to the first detailed laboratory analysis of the world's oldest sedimentary rocks.
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Advance in understanding of blood pressure gene could lead to new treatments
02-04-2007 · EurekAlert!
Research by scientists at UCL (University College London) has clearly demonstrated for the first time the structure and function of a gene crucial to the regulation of blood pressure. The discovery could be important in the search for new treatments for illnesses such as heart disease, the UK's biggest killer. In a paper published online today in Nature Medicine, the team, led by Professor Patrick Vallance and Dr James Leiper, UCL Department of Medicine, reveal the role of the human gene dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase (DDAH), showing that loss of DDAH activity disrupts nitric oxide (NO) production. NO is critical in the regulation of blood pressure, nervous system functions and the immune system. The role of DDAH is to break down modified amino acids (Asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) and monomethyl arginine (L-NMMA)) that are produced by the body and have been shown to inhibit NO synthase. These molecules accumulate in various disease states including diabetes, renal failure and pulmonary and systemic hypertension, and their concentration in plasma (the fluid component of blood) is strongly predicative of cardiovascular disease and death. In a healthy human body, the majority of ADMA is eliminated through active metabolism by DDAH. Scientists have hypothesised that if DDAH function is impaired, NO production is reduced, and that this could be an important feature of increased cardiovascular risk. To examine this pathway in more detail, the researchers deleted the DDAH gene in mice. These mice went on to develop hypertension, or high blood pressure. They also designed specific inhibitors (small molecules) which bind to the active site of human DDAH. These small molecule inhibitors also induced hypertension in mice, confirming the importance of DDAH in the regulation of blood pressure. Dr Leiper, UCL Medicine, said: “These genetic and chemical approaches to disrupt DDAH showed remarkably consistent results, and provide compelling evidence that loss of DDAH function increases the concentration of ADMA and thereby disrupts vascular NO signalling. “There has been considerable scientific interest in this pathway and the role of ADMA as a novel risk factor, but so far there's been little evidence to support the idea that it's a cause of disease, rather than just a marker. Genes and their pathways are crucial to our understanding of cardiovascular disease and a better understanding of DDAH-1 could lead to important new treatments. “It could help us to establish if genetic variation predisposes certain people to these diseases, or whether environmental factors exert some of their effects through modulation of DDAH activity. “Our research also shows that this pathway could be harnessed therapeutically to limit production of NO in certain situations where too much nitric oxide is a bad thing; for example, hypotension and septic shock. These are some of the biggest problems in intensive care medicine and there is a huge unmet need for drug treatments.” The study, which was carried out at UCL's Rayne Institute, was funded by grants from the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation, said: "The unexpected finding in the 1980s that a simple gas, nitric oxide (NO), is made by cells in the blood vessel wall and is a powerful control of blood vessel relaxation led to the award of the Nobel Prize in 1998 to its discoverers. "More recently, there has been increasing evidence that impairment of NO production is likely to be an important factor in the development of heart and circulatory disease, but the mechanisms responsible are not fully understood. "This study suggests for the first time that the loss of the activity of the enzyme DDAH-1 leads to reduced NO production and may cause heart and circulatory disease. These findings are likely to be important in the search for new ways to optimise the health of our blood vessels." ### Notes for Editors 1. For more information, please contact Ruth Metcalfe in the UCL Media Relations Office on tel: +44 (0)20 7679 9739, mobile: +44 (0)7990 675 947, out of hours: +44 (0)7917 271 364, e-mail: r.metcalfe@ucl.ac.uk2. 'Disruption of methylarginine metabolism impairs vascular homeostasis' is published in the February issue of the journal Nature Medicine. Advance online publication is embargoed to 18.00 GMT (13.00 US Eastern) Sunday 4 February 2007. Journalists can obtain copies of the paper by contacting the UCL Media Relations Office.3. The study was funded by the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. About UCL Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender, and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine. In the government's most recent Research Assessment Exercise, 59 UCL departments achieved top ratings of 5* and 5, indicating research quality of international excellence. UCL is the fourth-ranked UK university in the 2006 league table of the top 500 world universities produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. UCL alumni include Mahatma Gandhi (Laws 1889, Indian political and spiritual leader); Jonathan Dimbleby (Philosophy 1969, writer and television presenter); Junichiro Koizumi (Economics 1969, Prime Minister of Japan); Lord Woolf (Laws 1954, Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales); Alexander Graham Bell (Phonetics 1860s, inventor of the telephone), and members of the band Coldplay.
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Overweight and obesity cause 6,000 cancers a year in UK women
11-06-2007 · EurekAlert!
Following last week's report by the World Cancer Research Fund, evidence of the relevance of obesity to the risk of a wide range of cancers in UK women is published online by the BMJ today.
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World's oldest rocks show how Earth may have dodged frozen fate of Mars
02-05-2007 · EurekAlert!
Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that has become a bane of modern society, may have saved Earth from freezing over early in the planet's history, according to a detailed laboratory analysis of the world's oldest sedimentary rocks by University of Chicago and University of Colorado at Boulder researchers.
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