MS is the result of damage to myelin - the protective sheath surrounding nerve fibres of the central nervous system - which interferes with messages between the brain and the body. For some people, MS is characterised by periods of relapse and remission while for others it has a progressive pattern.  Symptoms range from loss of sight and mobility, fatigue, depression and cognitive problems.

Researchers at the University of British Columbia have discovered a mimic of one of "nature's antibiotics" that can be used to coat medical devices to prevent infection and rejection.   The study, released today in the journal Chemistry and Biology, found that a synthetic form, short tethered cationic antimicrobial peptides (cationic peptide), can protect surfaces, like those of medical devices, killing bacteria and fungi that come into contact with them. Peptides are small proteins.

Show Me The Science Month, Day 2

How do two populations change genetically when they are subjected to different evolutionary pressures? To answer this question, many intrepid evolutionary biologists have trudged out into the field to painstakingly study wild populations, but in many cases, we can learn more by studying evolution in the lab. In a paper published the February issue of Nature Genetics, a group of Portuguese and US researchers report a study of 28 years of evolution in a set of lab fruit fly populations. Their results are an example of how studying evolution in the lab, even for a short time, can provide insight in to how natural selection shapes the genetic contours of a population.

Morale has plummeted at the National Science Foundation, it seems, due to governmental oversight and interference from above.    The Senate Finance Committee didn't like a report they got from the NSF and are going to do something about it.

What, that sum'bitch Bush came back to haunt scientists and personally rewrite reports and ask why employees aren't doing their jobs instead of doing talk show appearances about how much he stinks?

Investigators from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and a Bolzano colleague have written another chapter in a murder case over 5,000 years old. New investigations  reconstructed the chronology of the injuries that Oetzi, the glacier man preserved as a frozen mummy, received in his last days.

Astronomers have observed the intense heating of a distant planet as it swung close to its parent star, providing important clues to the atmospheric properties of the planet.  With that data,  astronomers at the University of California, Santa Cruz were able to generate 'realistic' images of the planet by feeding the data into computer simulations of the planet's atmosphere.    The researchers used NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to obtain infrared measurements of the heat emanating from the planet as it whipped behind and close to its star. In just six hours, the planet's temperature rose from 800 to 1,500 Kelvin (980 to 2,240 degrees Fahrenheit). 

The team operating NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit plans diagnostic tests this week after Spirit did not report some of its weekend activities, including a request to determine its orientation after an incomplete drive.

On Sunday, during the 1,800th Martian day, or sol, of what was initially planned as a 90-sol mission on Mars, information radioed from Spirit indicated the rover had received its driving commands for the day but had not moved. That can happen for many reasons, including the rover properly sensing that it is not ready to drive. However, other behavior on Sol 1800 was even more unusual: Spirit apparently did not record the day's main activities into the non-volatile memory, the part of its memory that persists even when power is off.

Name it and the milk will come, say scientists at Newcastle University.  It's not "Field of Dreams" it's Milk of Dreams.   Or whatever analogy you want to use for a correlation-causation fantasy that leads to a conclusion that a cow with a name produces more milk than one without.

Drs Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson say they have shown in their study in Anthrozoos ("A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People and Animals"!!) that by giving a cow a name and treating her as an individual farmers can increase their annual milk yield  - by over 60 gallons.