Using their novel bio-bar-code amplification (BCA) technology, researchers analyzing fluid from around the brain and spinal cord have detected a protein linked in recent studies to Alzheimer's disease.

Interesting application Read more about the bio-bar-code technology :

- Gold nanoparticles and bio-bar codes bring sensitive DNA detection
- Nanoparticle-Based Bio–Bar Codes for the Ultrasensitive Detection of Proteins
- Bio-Barcode Diagnostic Method Could Rival PCR

If proven successful in further clinical studies, the procedure could become the first tool for early diagnosis of Alzheimer's, and the first test to conclusively identify the disease in living patients.

Chad Mirkin and William Klein of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC) for Nanopatterning and Detection Technologies at Northwestern University, and their colleagues, announce their findings the week of Jan. 31 in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The new book Hotspots Revisited identifies 34 regions worldwide where 75 percent of the planet's most threatened mammals, birds, and amphibians survive within habitat covering just 2.3 percent of the Earth's surface (roughly equivalent to the combined areas of the five largest U.S. states). This habitat originally covered 15.7 percent of the Earth's surface, an area equivalent in size to Russia and Australia combined. The new analysis shows that an estimated 50 percent of all vascular plants and 42 percent of terrestrial vertebrates exist only in these 34 hotspots.

In the first field trial of plants genetically tweaked to absorb more contaminants, researchers found that the transgenic plants handily beat out their wild-type counterparts. The results raised hopes that the plants might become a viable alternative for cleaning up polluted soil.

The new research findings, published Feb. 1 in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, show that three transgenic lines of the Indian mustard plant, Brassica juncea, absorbed two to four times more selenium from contaminated soil than the genetically unaltered, wild-type plants.

Furan, a potentially dangerous chemical has been found by Health Canada and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in processed foods, especially canned or bottled foods. A new study by McGill researchers Dr. Varoujan Yaylayan and graduate student Carolina Perez Locas explains the presence of this chemical in a wide range of food products.

The study, published in the October, 2004 issue of Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, shows how food-based amino acids and sugars break down when heated to produce furan. It also identifies other food components, such as vitamin C and polyunsaturated fatty acids, which may produce furan as an unwanted by-product of cooking, bottling or canning food products.

Among the principal obstacles to regenerating spinal cord and brain cells after injury is the "braking" machinery in neurons that prevents regeneration. While peripheral nerves have no such machinery and can readily regenerate, central nervous system (CNS) neurons have their brakes firmly in place and locked.

Now, two groups of scientists have independently found a new component of that braking machinery, adding to understanding of the regulation of neuronal regeneration and of possible treatments to switch off the brakes on regrowth of spinal cord or brain tissue.

Links to interesting, non-press release articles for the afternoon:

- The Protein Grid needs your CPU cycles
- Connecticut likely to follow California on Stem cell research funding
- Yet another male birth control pill on the way; still none available
- Stem cell drug against bone marrow transplant reject on 'fast track'

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About nineteen percent of people have a genetic variation that may increase susceptibility to osteoporosis, a new study reveals. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis demonstrated that in women the variant gene speeds up the breakdown of estrogen and is associated with low density in the bones of the hip.

The study will be reported in the February issue of the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research and is available online.

Natural or deliberate exposure to smallpox poses a great health threat, especially since routine smallpox vaccinations have been discontinued and no clinically approved treatment currently exists. In the February 1 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Ellis Reinherz and colleagues from Harvard Medical School propose a new antiviral therapy – a low molecular weight inhibitor of signaling mediated by the smallpox growth factor (SPGF).

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned about increased risk of vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever across tsunami-affected areas in Southeast Asia. Nearly four weeks after the disaster struck the region on 26 December, the organization is strengthening its disease surveillance, stagnant water conditions creating conditions for mosquito vectors to multiply to sufficient levels, to potentially cause severe public health problems.

Most affected countries in the region are endemic for dengue fever and malaria except the Maldives, which has no malaria cases but does have dengue cases. With the onset of the rainy season, particularly in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, a rise in the cases can be expected at this time of the year.

A key mechanism in the passing of genetic material from a parent cell to daughter cells appears to have been identified by a team of Berkeley researchers. Their study may explain how a complex of proteins, called kinetochores, can recognize and stay attached to microtubules, hollow fibers in the walls of biological cells that are responsible for the faithful segregation of chromosomes during cell division.

"In test tube experiments, we've found that the kinetochore proteins form rings around the microtubules and this ring formation promotes microtubule assembly, stabilizes against disassembly, and promotes bundling," says Eva Nogales, a biophysicist who holds joint appointments with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), the University of California at Berkeley, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). "If ring formation takes place in vivo, it could be the mechanism by which chromosomes are kept segregated during mitosis."