In times of starvation, cells tighten their belts: they start to digest their own proteins and cellular organs. The process - known as autophagy - takes place in special organelles called autophagosomes. It is a strategy that simple yeast cells have developed as a means of survival when times get tough, and in the course of evolution, it has become a kind of self-cleaning process. In mammalian cells, autophagosomes are also responsible for getting rid of misfolded proteins, damaged organelles or disease-causing bacteria. 

SAN RAMON, California, February 27 /PRNewswire/ --

- Energy Providers from Numerous Countries Gain Insight on Industry Leading ZigBee Technology

ZigBee welcomed more than 120 representatives of European governments, utilities and energy services companies to its European Smart Energy Forum in Dublin, Ireland on February 13, 2009. Coming on the heels of its 27th member meeting, the Forum demonstrated end-to-end applications of ZigBee networking and ZigBee Smart Energy, including smart meters and mesh networked backhaul technologies, as well as ZigBee thermostats and in-home displays in a user- friendly forum for energy providers.

PHILADELPHIA, February 26 /PRNewswire/ --

- The first co-developed, fully integrated solution on the market eliminates the need for remotely deployed load generators and automatically aggregates end-to-end statistics into HP Performance Center 9.5 (including HP LoadRunner 9.5)

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, February 26 /PRNewswire/ --

Despite challenging economic conditions in 2009, expansion in mobile data services and broadband Internet access will fuel the growth of the Brazilian telecom market, helping it retain the position of the largest telecom market in Latin America, according to the latest report from Pyramid Research (www.pyr.com), the telecom research arm of the Light Reading Communications Network (www.lightreading.com).

PALO ALTO, California, February 26 /PRNewswire/ --

- Funding to advance novel Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) therapies against new targets

Eiger BioPharmaceuticals, Inc., a start-up biotechnology company developing antiviral therapies, announced that it has raised US$7.1 million in a Series A financing co-led by InterWest Partners and Vivo Ventures. The funding will advance the company's lead program targeted against NS4B, a specific region in the hepatitis C virus (HCV) protein.

I am traveling back from Brown University (on Amtrak's Acela Express train, ah, the civilization of the Northeast!), where I participated in a panel discussion on evolution and religion together with Ed Larson (Pepperdine University, author of the Pulitzer winning Summer for the Gods on the Scopes trial), art historian Mary Bergstein (Rhode Island School for Design), and Brown's own

BARCELONA, February 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Prous Institute for Biomedical Research today presented its strategies for drug discovery on its newly designed website (http://www.prousresearch.com). A large computational project with basic research support and broad disease coverage is being developed at Prous Institute under the broad-based Epistemic Drug Discovery(R) project.

President and C.E.O. of the Institute, Dr. J.R. Prous, explained that We are committed to accelerating biomedical knowledge by the synchronization of powerful expert knowledge-based systems and basic research. This next-generation drug RD force is expected to increase the efficiency and efficacy of core drug RD processes, facilitating continuous innovation.

ROUSSET, France, February 26 /PRNewswire/ --

- Enables Design Development for Upcoming AT91CAP9H with 2 Million Gates of Customizable Logic

ROUSSET, France and TAIPEI, Taiwan, February 26 /PRNewswire/ --

- Illustrates Ease and Rapidity of CAP Application Development; JPEG Compression and De-compression IP available from PGC

Atmel(R) Corporation (Nasdaq: ATML) and PGC (Progate Group Corporation) announced today the availability of a JPEG image viewer reference design ported onto the low-cost AT91CAP9A-STK Starter Kit for Atmel's AT91CAP9S Customizable Microcontroller. When connected to a host PC via its USB Device Port, the CAP-STK appears as a mass storage device for JPEG images. Running stand-alone, the CAP-STK de-compresses the images and displays them on its VGA screen, using JPEG de-compression and display IP supplied by PGC, and mapped into the FPGA that emulates CAP's Metal Programmable block.

MOSCOW, February 26 /PRNewswire/ -- The international exhibition Sviaz-Expocomm-2009, which is to take place at Expocentre in May 12 - 15, 2009, has got official support of the Ministry of Telecommunications and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation.

The Minister of Communications Igor Shchegolev assumes that the exhibition possesses impressive potential and is worthy of support as one of the most significant branch forums.

The exhibition is also being held under the patronage of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Russia, with the support and participation of the core federal bodies and also the Government of Moscow.