Just to say a word about the daily updates; I have no Windows-based PC available here (all macs!) so I can't use my thunderbird client with all my RSS feeds. For the time being, news will come from Eurekalert and Sciendaily (the two major ones). I also can't check my admin email account, so write in the forum if you find any inconsistency, mistakes, bad links, etc. Sadly I have a non-standard spanish keyboard, which I'm getting used to slowly. We're going to visit Pyramids tomorrow; I hope I'll have the time to update, but in the case I can't, feel free to post interesting links in the forum with an appropriate title! I should be back soon :)

The flow of carbon through soil is ten times greater than the amount of carbon moved around by the burning of fossil fuel but until now how this happens was at best poorly understood. Soil was almost literally a black box to scientists interested in carbon. Now researchers at the University of Warwick have been able to shed light in that black box by getting a particular class of insects to expose the key underground carbon traffic system - by eating it.

Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of death among American men. It is estimated that one in six males will develop the disease during his lifetime. However, promising new treatment options have been developed to help combat this threatening disease.

'Osmolytes' critical to survival of kidney cells and organisms in extreme environments

Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) have developed a new way to predict the ability of certain small molecules to protect proteins in the cells of a wide variety of organisms living in extreme environments. The technique, described in a paper published online Oct. 7 in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences (PNAS), is a method of calculating the stabilizing effect on cellular proteins by small organic molecules called "osmolytes." It could have implications for the study of Alzheimer's disease, cystic fibrosis, kidney disease and stabilizing protein drugs.

Vaccines have helped eradicate and tame some of history's worst infectious diseases, but there are many more diseases out there that vaccines can help overcome. The challenges society needs to confront to unlock the future promise of vaccines against the plagues of the 21st century are the focus of a new report by the American Academy of Microbiology.

Yale is a founding member of the Genome-Wide RNAi Global Initiative, an alliance of top international biomedical research centers formed to speed scientific and medical discoveries that target genes of the entire human genome. The initiative is sponsored by Dharmacon, Inc., manufacturer of the first complete human genome siRNA library, or compilation of short, interfering ribonucleic acid sequences. The library is designed to determine when individual genes are functioning. It uses a format that is accessible to researchers for detailed analysis of individual genes, gene families and metabolic pathways.

Pediatric surgeon looks to fetal cells to repair birth defectsResearchers at Children's Hospital Boston report using tissue engineering to reconstruct defective tracheas (windpipes) in fetal lambs, first using cells from the amniotic fluid to grow sections of cartilage tube, and then implanting these living grafts into the lambs while still in the womb.