Dutch researcher Roelof Mol has investigated possibilities for more accurately determining the composition of medicines. He came up with a combination of two techniques that were previously considered to be incompatible: the separation technique electrokinetic chromatography (EKC) and the detection technique mass spectroscopy (MS). He has used this approach to develop an extra quality control mechanism for the active ingredient and excipients in medicines. With this, the chance of a toxic substance ending up in a medicine will be reduced considerably.

When people living in many parts of the world move their clocks forward one hour in the spring in observance of daylight saving time (DST), their bodies’ internal, daily rhythms don’t adjust with them, reports a new study appearing online on October 25th in Current Biology, a publication of Cell Press. The finding suggests that this regular time change—practiced by a quarter of the human population—represents a significant seasonal disruption, raising the possibility that DST may have unintended effects on other aspects of human physiology, according to the researchers.

There are many historical stories of shepherds and travellers encountering lions, for example the Old Testament contains dozens of tales about attacks on flocks and people by these fierce predators. Lions have now disappeared from most of their former range, but for livestock owners around the Waza National Park, Cameroon, living with lions is a daily reality. Although loss of human life is rarely reported, lion predation can cost the herders close to 1000 US$ per family each year. Scientists from the Resource Ecology Group, Wageningen University and the Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University, investigated the factors that contributed to these losses and why pastoralists continued to graze their herds close to the lion’s hunting grounds, which has recently been published in the African Journal of Ecology.

By applying state-of-the-art holographic microscopy to a major marine biology challenge, researchers from two Baltimore institutions have identified the swimming and attack patterns of two tiny but deadly microbes linked to fish kills in the Chesapeake Bay and other waterways.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota’s Stem Cell Institute have described how an existing genetic tool can be used to study how human embryonic stem cells differentiate. The research appears in the November 2007 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine.

Inhaled depleted uranium (DU) oxide aerosols are recognised as a distinct human health hazard and DU has been suggested to be responsible in part for illness in both military and civilian populations that may have been exposed.

– It used to be dogma that the brain was shut away from the actions of the immune system, shielded from the outside forces of nature. But that’s not how it is at all. In fact, thanks to the scientific detective work of Kevin Tracey, MD, it turns out that the brain talks directly to the immune system, sending commands that control the body’s inflammatory response to infection and autoimmune diseases. Understanding the intimate relationship is leading to a novel way to treat diseases triggered by a dangerous inflammatory response.

Global temperatures predicted for the coming centuries may trigger a new ‘mass extinction event’, where over 50 per cent of animal and plant species would be wiped out, warn scientists at the Universities of York and Leeds.

A new study suggests that viruses may contribute to cancer by causing excessive death to normal cells while promoting the growth of surviving cells with cancerous traits. Viruses may act as forces of natural selection by wiping out normal cells that support the replication of viruses and leaving behind those cells that have acquired defects in their circuitry. When this process is repeated over and over, cancer can develop say study authors, led by Preet M. Chaudhary, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Their findings are published by Public Library of Science in the Oct. 24 issue of PLoS ONE.