Positron Emission Tomography (PET) was invented at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University in the mid 1970s and was used as a research tool in neurology, cardiology, and oncology (1).

It has been developed as a tool for imaging and quantification of cellular and molecular processes in vivo and made an important role in staging diseases and monitoring response to treatment (2).

In comparison to anatomic imaging modalities, PET produces images of biochemical and physiologic processes in tissues that help distinguishing benign and malignant lesions when CT and MRI cannot (1,3) .

Schistosoma haematobium (S. haematobium) is a parasitic flatworm that infects millions of people, mostly in the developing world, and is associated with high incidence of bladder cancer although why is not clear.

Two works by Portuguese researchers just out in The Journal of Experimental Pathology (1) and the International Journal of Parasitology (2) reveal that cells infected in laboratory with S. haematobium, acquire cancer-like characteristics and, when injected into mice develop into tumours. The research identifies as well the host molecules linked to the carcinogenic changes, suggesting that these could be used as therapeutic targets to prevent bladder cancer.

A deadly new airborne wheat rust disease threatens wheat production and food security throughout Afghanistan. The disease also threatens the region that stretches east across neighboring Pakistan and into India.

Often the topic of controversy, stem cells research has once again proved itself necessary. University of Florida researchers were able to program bone marrow stem cells to repair damaged retinas in mice.

The success in repairing a damaged layer of retinal cells in mice implies that blood stem cells taken from bone marrow can be programmed to restore a variety of cells and tissues, including ones involved in cardiovascular disorders such as atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease.

The human eye lens consists of a highly concentrated mix of several proteins. Protective proteins keep them from aggregating and clumping. If this protection fails, the lens blurs and the patient develops cataracts. Two research groups at the Department of Chemistry of the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) have succeeded in explaining the molecular architecture of this kind of protective protein. Their findings, which are published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).

Every day we make a multitude of decisions based on the consequences of our actions; goal-orientated responses.

In an always changing environment this capacity is crucial but, because it is complex, it also requires a lot from the brain. So repeated actions, like to press the elevator button to our floor, become linked to other type of neural responses, which are automatic and so less demanding. And if necessary it is always possible to switch back to the first kind of response.

The effects of amphetamines on gene expression in zebrafish have been discovered. This new study, published in BioMed Central's open access journal Genome Biology, provides clues to the genetics that underlie susceptibility to addiction by describing the nad zebrafish mutant, which does not feel the rewarding effects of the drugs.

Ever since graphene was discovered in 2004, this one-atom thick, super strong, carbon-based electrical conductor has been billed as a "wonder material" that some physicists think could one day replace silicon in computer chips.

But graphene, which consists of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice, has a major drawback when it comes to applications in electronics: it conducts electricity almost too well, making it hard to create graphene-based transistors that are suitable for integrated circuits.

In Physics World, Kostya Novoselov--a condensed-matter physicist from Manchester University--explains how their discovery of graphane, an insulating equivalent of graphene, may prove more versatile.

Stem cell researchers trying to understand the mechanisms that determine whether stem cells divide or differentiate, and what types of cells they become and how to control them to develop new treatments, may have gotten some much needed help.

Investigators at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) and The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have made a comparative, large-scale phosphoproteomic analysis of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and their differentiated derivatives. The study was published in the journal Cell Stem Cell.

Comets contained vast oceans of liquid water in their interiors during the first million years of their formation, argue Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe and colleagues at the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology in a paper published in the International Journal of Astrobiology. 

The watery environment of early comets, together with the vast quantity of organics already discovered in comets, would have provided ideal conditions for primitive bacteria to grow and multiply, they say.