Genes that contain instructions for making proteins make up less than 2% of the human genome. Yet, for unknown reasons, most of our genome is transcribed into RNA.
Investigating all transcripts produced in a yeast cell, researchers in the groups of Lars Steinmetz at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and Wolfgang Huber at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) in Hinxton, UK found that most regions of the yeast genome produce several transcripts starting at the same promoter. These transcripts are interleaved and overlapping on the DNA. In contrast to what was previously thought, the vast majority of promoters seem to initiate transcription in both directions.
Dead zones are low-oxygen areas in the ocean where higher life forms such as fish, crabs and clams are not able to live. In shallow coastal regions, for examples, dead zones can be caused by runoff of excess fertilizers from farming.
A team of Danish researchers is projecting that unchecked global warming would lead to a dramatic expansion of low-oxygen areas zones in the global ocean by a factor of 10 or more.
Whereas some coastal dead zones could be recovered by simply controlling fertilizer usage, expanded low-oxygen areas caused by global warming might remain for many years. The findings are reported in a paper 'Long-term ocean oxygen depletion in response to carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels' in Nature Geoscience.
Psoriasis affects some 7.5 million people in the United States, causing sore, itchy patches of red, scaly skin. In many cases psoriasis is not only disfiguring; between 10 and 30 percent of patients develop psoriatic arthritis, a painful inflammation of the joints. Current treatments, including different types of immunosuppressive agents, aren't always effective, and they can cause serious side effects.
Psoriasis has a strong genetic component; a child with two affected parents has a 50 percent chance of developing it; siblings have a three- to six-fold risk. But the genes responsible for psoriasis haven't yet been completely understood.
In the latest Vanity Fair is a brilliant piece of journalism, Goodbye to All That: An Oral History of the Bush White House by Cullen Murphy and Todd Purdum. In a fun, easy-to-read format, it tells some basic truths I had never read before. Here are two examples:
Matthew Dowd, Bush’s pollster and chief strategist for the 2004 presidential campaign:
When Abu Ghraib happened, I was like, We’ve got to fire Rumsfeld. Like if we’re the “accountability president,” we haven’t really done this.
When thinking of a child with ADD, most people will picture an easily-distracted hyperactive child... long on energy, and short on attention span. And although that is sometimes the case, that description accurately describes only a portion of children diagnosed with ADD - and very rarely describes the behavior of girls with the condition.
When comparing players in baseball, it's difficult to cross even modern 'eras' because conditioning and strategies have changed. 6'2" shortstops are relatively common now but unheard of even 30 years ago. Likewise, American football has undergone strategic shifts that are easily recognizable, with the West Coast Offense less in vogue but a 3-4 defense coming back into popularity as compared to 20 years ago.
New research by an Arabian prince could see the millions of date stones disposed of in Saudi Arabia each year instead used to decrease air and water pollution. Abdulrahman Bandar Al-Saud, 34, is studying for a PhD at Queen’s University Belfast’s School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.
His research is based on the premise that date stones can be used to develop activated carbon with a high adsorption capacity. Activated carbon is a form of the element that has been processed to make it extremely porous with a very large surface area available for adsorption.
European researchers say they have developed the most advanced spontaneous language understanding (SLU) system ever devised for both Polish and Italian languages. That's because it is also the first one, according to the Luna project behind the work.
Spontaneous language understanding is far more advanced than the traditional interactive voice response (IVR) systems that people may already be familiar with. In traditional IVRs, the user is required to answer questions with specific words or short sentences proposed by the systems.
But with SLU, language systems are designed to respond to spontaneous speech: real conversations between people that include the sentence fillers and pause words like ‘um’ and ‘er’.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, January 21 /PRNewswire/ --
Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNPS) announces the following TechOnline Webinar:
What: Synopsys, Inc. Webinar When: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 @ 9:00 a.m. (Pacific) / 12:00 p.m. (Eastern) Where: http://www.techonline.com/learning/livewebinar/212701450 How: Live over the Internet -- Simply log on to the web at the address above. Contact: Heather Webb of Synopsys, Inc., Heather.Webb@synopsys.com.
In this webinar:
- Discover the different types of I/O Virtualization
- Learn how I/O Virtualization is addressed within the PCI Express specification
ALGIERS and TORONTO, Canada, January 20 /PRNewswire/ --
- New VoIP Service Provides Virtual Algerian Phone Numbers to Iristel Subscribers Worldwide -
Algeria Telecom, Algeria's leading provider of telecommunications services, and Iristel Inc., a leading global provider of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services, today announced an exclusive alliance to offer Algeria Connect, a new VoIP service that provides virtual Algerian phone numbers to Iristel subscribers worldwide. With Algeria Connect, phone calls from Algeria can be made to subscribers regardless of where they are located in the world, using an Algerian phone number and at the cost of a local call.
