Terrorists are leveraging information technology to learn how to create devastating weapons cheaply and quickly - and the West is now having to learn to keep up.

Since the start of the Iraq War, improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, have accounted for nearly half of the combat deaths reported by U.S. coalition forces. The death toll underscores a grim paradox of the ongoing conflict: during the last four and a half years the United States and its allies have fielded the most advanced and complex weaponry ever developed, but egg timers and toy remote controls in the hands of knowledgeable terrorists can do just as much damage.

Military analysts and counterterrorism experts say that this war is radically different from previous ones and must be thought of in an entirely new light.

Ubiquitin is a small protein, which can be attached to other cellular proteins. A study headed by the Junior Group of Dr. Daniel Krappmann (GSF - National Research Center for Environment and Health, Institute of Toxicology) in collaboration with Dr. Jürgen Ruland (TU Munich) and Dr. Claus Scheidereit (Max-Delbrück-Center , Berlin) now reports a novel finding about ubiquitination as a key event for the activation of an immune response.

The acquired immune response is triggered after specific engagement of foreign peptides (antigens) by receptor molecules on white blood cell (lymphocytes). Cellular signaling pathways are responsible for the activation of lymphocytes.

The Mandala is a detailed sand representation of the residence of the Medicine Buddha and one will be constructed by Tibetan monks over four days in Paris while simultaneously being displayed virtually in Second Life.

This confluence of technology and religion will get the message out about the situation in Burma, according to members of the Mind Science Institute and executives at a London think tank called Unfrozenmind, who have collaborated on the Second Life simulcast of the actual event.

Not everyone - okay, no one outside the Chinese government - is all that happy about things in Burma these days so they believe this will promote awareness of the situation there and aid Monks and Nuns of Burma in their efforts at independence.

With the latest advances in treatment, doctors say they can successfully neutralize the HIV virus. The so-called ‘combination therapy’ prevents the HIV virus from mutating and spreading, allowing patients to rebuild their immune system to the same levels as the rest of the population.

Professor Jens Lundgren from the University of Copenhagen, together with other members of the research group EuroSIDA, have conducted a study, which demonstrates that the immune system of all HIV-infected patients can be restored and normalized. The only stipulation is that patients begin and continue to follow their course of treatment.

Viruses are small organisms that have no independent metabolism. Consequently, when they enter the body they attack living cells and adopt their metabolism.

Groundbreaking - and heartwarmingly unessential - research done by University of Central Florida physics professor Costas Efthimiou has attempted to confirm what a generation of suicide girls has always feared - that vampires do not exist.

His reasoning? On Jan 1, 1600, the human population was just over 530 million people.

The governments of China and Brazil, exempt from Kyoto as developing nations yet still important polluters, commissioned a report from the InterAcademy Council that will be published Monday, October 22nd.  Its intent is to identify and detail the science, technology and policy framework for developing energy resources to drive economic growth in both developed and developing countries while also securing climate protection.

In animals with separate sexes, embryos commit to becoming male or female at an early stage. Often this key decision is made by sex determination genes on the sex chromosomes.

The genes involved in sexual development have changed remarkably little during evolution. In contrast, the sex determination genes and the sex chromosomes themselves are among the most rapidly changing features of the genome.

A research team formed by Sander van Doorn (Santa Fe Institute, USA) and Mark Kirkpatrick (University of Texas at Austin, USA) suggests an answer to the puzzle of why sex chromosomes evolve so rapidly. In a theoretical study published in the October 17, 2007 issue of NATURE they demonstrate that sexual conflict can establish novel sex-determining genes and sex chromosomes.

While acne is oftentimes as much a part of being a teenager as dating and Friday night football games, a new study examining the prevalence of acne in adults age 20 and older confirms that a significant proportion of adults continue to be plagued by acne well beyond the teenage years. In particular, women experience acne at higher rates than their male counterparts across all age groups 20 years and older.

In the study entitled, “The prevalence of acne in adults 20 years and older,” published online in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, dermatologist Julie C.

This animation, comprised of images acquired by Envisat’s Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) instrument, shows the breaking away of a giant iceberg from the Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica. Spanning 34 km in length by 20 km in width, the new iceberg covers an area nearly half the size of Greater London.

The animation highlights the movement in the area between September 2006 and October 2007. The Pine Island Glacier is visible stretching from the right of the image to the centre. The tongue of Pine Island is shown moving inland between September 2006 and March 2007. Between April and May 2007, the detached iceberg in front of Pine Island moves significantly. Also in May 2007, a crack in Pine Island becomes visible. By October, the new iceberg has completely broken away.

Ancient, light-sensitive cryptochromes occur in corals, insects, fish and mammals - including humans - and are primitive light-sensing pigment mechanisms which predate the evolution of eyes.
New research regarding these genes by an international team of Australian and Israeli researchers has discovered what could be the aphrodisiac for the biggest moonlight sex event on Earth.

In a new paper published in Science today the team, headed by Dr Oren Levy of CoECRS and the University of Queensland, reports its discovery that the Cry2 gene, stimulated by the faint blue light of the full moon, appears to play a central role in triggering the mass coral spawning event across a third of a million square kilometers of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, one of nature’s wonders.