By mopping up excess neurotrophic factor from neuronal synapses, astrocytes may finely tune synaptic transmission to affect processes such as learning and memory, say Bergami et al.

The major cellular events of learning and memory are long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD), both of which affect neurons' ability to communicate with one another. Neurons that have undergone LTP display a stronger electrical response to the same level of a stimulus, whereas neurons that have gone through LTD display a weaker response. These changes are thought to result from modifications of the neuronal synapses, such as alterations in the density of postsynaptic receptors, or downstream signaling events.

The transportation of antibodies from a mother to her newborn child is vital for the development of that child's nascent immune system.

Those antibodies, donated by transfer across the placenta before birth or via breast milk after birth, help shape a baby's response to foreign pathogens and may influence the later occurrence of autoimmune diseases.

Images from biologists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have revealed for the first time the complicated process by which these antibodies are shuttled from mother's milk, through her baby's gut, and into the bloodstream, and offer new insight into the mammalian immune system.

Chicken soup isn't just good for the common cold and, apparently, our souls, that popular home remedy so ubiquitous it is sometimes known as "Grandma's Penicillin" may also have a new role alongside medication and other medical measures in fighting high blood pressure, scientists in Japan are reporting. Their research is in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Ai Saiga and colleagues cite previous studies indicating that chicken breast contains collagen proteins with effects similar to ACE inhibitors, mainstay medications for treating high blood pressure. But chicken breast contains such small amounts of the proteins that it could not be used to develop food and medical products for high blood pressure. Chicken legs and feet, often discarded as waste products in the U.S. but key soup ingredients elsewhere, appear to be a better source.

Heavy industry takes a lot of blame for greenhouse gas emissions but at least one segment may be able to do something to give a little back. Steelworks around the world emitting large quantities of carbon dioxide but scientists report that a byproduct of steel production could be used to absorb that greenhouse gas and help control global warming. The study is in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research.

Professor Mourad Kharoune and colleagues point out that production of one ton of steel releases up to one ton of CO2. With global steel production standing at 1.34 billion tons in 2007, that adds up to a substantial contribution of carbon dioxide.

Kharoune suggests a new method to sequester, or capture, carbon dioxide so that it does not contribute to global warming – using steel slags, which are complex mixtures of compounds produced during the separation of the molten steel from impurities.

SAN MATEO, California, October 13 /PRNewswire/ --

- Technology Leader Mines Hard-to-Find Data from the Web

FirstRain(R), the leading provider of search-driven research, today announced the launch of its UK operations. This milestone makes an innovative fundamental data stream available to U.K. firms for the first time.

"FirstRain feeds us fundamental information on industries and companies that is not generally available on sell-side research," said Luis Benoliel, analyst at First State Investments. "This helps us reduce the risk of missing important industry data points."

Scientists have found a new possible explanation for why people who eat more fruit and vegetables may gain protection against the spread of cancers; a fragment released from pectin, found in all fruits and vegetables, that binds to and may inhibit galectin 3 (Gal3), a protein that plays a role in all stages of cancer progression.

Population studies such as EPIC, the European Prospective Investigation of Cancer, identified a strong link between eating lots of fibre and a lower risk of cancers of the gastrointestinal tract. But exactly how fibre exerts a protective effect is unknown.

Pectin is better known for its jam-setting qualities and as being a component of dietary fibre. The present study supports a more exciting and subtle role.

If there’s one halfway healthy thing that most people do, it’s take a multivitamin pill. My word, taking a little pill with decent amounts of the essential micronutrients and minerals keeps you from getting scurvy, right?

Right. Most people don’t eat sufficient fruits and vegetables. Most people don’t get enough vitamin C over the course of a week to keep them from getting low-grade scurvy, unless you’re one of the smart few who toss back an orange juice shot in the morning.

(Just for the record, I imbibe espresso shooters in the morning. I’m not getting up on my high elliptical strider and being healthier-than-thou.

Scientists have discovered that a bone infection is caused by a newly described species of bacteria that is related to the tuberculosis pathogen. The discovery may help improve the diagnosis and treatment of similar infections, according to an article published in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.

Some rare genetic diseases can make patients susceptible to infections with Mycobacterium species, the bacteria that amongst other diseases, cause tuberculosis and leprosy. These patients often suffer from recurring mycobacterial infections throughout their whole lives. Because of this, researchers are trying to identify unusual species that cause disease in order to improve treatment strategies.

Only A Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul
by Kenneth R. Miller
Viking, 2008

Ken Miller is not preaching to the choir. Although he has a day job as an active research biologist at Brown University, Miller has spent more than two decades on the front lines of the battle over evolution as a writer, lecturer, and expert witness in court. During these two decades of culture war, he has come to realize that, although the stakes are high in this fight, sometimes the best tactic is the non-martial one: don't treat the American public as pawns in a propaganda war.

Miller starts with the assumption that most people will be fairly open-minded about evolution and intelligent design. Before they make a firm judgment on the role of evolution in our public schools, people genuinely want to know what the scientific status of evolution is, and whether intelligent design is truly a scientific challenger. Many previous books debunking evolution have missed people like this. Such books typically fall into two categories: necessary but dense, technical works that provide, in detail, the scientific community's best response to the claims of intelligent design advocates, and scathing, hard-hitting attacks that fire up those who already accept evolution, but turn off readers who are trying hard to understand this issue without being strongly biased either way. Only A Theory is a genuine attempt at persuasion, and its approach is a result of Dr. Miller's years of practice speaking to audiences who want to give both sides a fair shot.

Don't be fooled, however, into thinking that Miller is trying to find some mutually satisfactory middle ground. For those who want to know whether evolution really is good science, his answer is unambiguous - evolution is one of the most successful and important theories we have in biology. And what about intelligent design? Its advocates have not even attempted to make this a real scientific discipline; evolution is the only scientific game in town.

Scientists at Bonn and Düsseldorf Universities investigated over 500,000 positions in the human genome and found a gene variant which occurs clearly more frequently in bald men than in control persons. This means they have found a new hair loss gene, according to their study in Nature Genetics.

In 2005, these scientists had already characterized the first hair-loss gene inherited through the maternal line, which explained why hair-loss in men often reflects that of their maternal grandfathers. This newly discovered gene, on the other hand, may now account for the similarity in cranial hair growth between father and son.