Cardiff University scientists will shortly set sail (March 5) to investigate a startling discovery in the depths of the Atlantic.

Scientists have discovered a large area thousands of square kilometres in extent in the middle of the Atlantic where the Earth's crust appears to be missing. Instead, the mantle - the deep interior of the Earth, normally covered by crust many kilometres thick - is exposed on the seafloor, 3000m below the surface.

Marine geologist Dr Chris MacLeod, School of Earth, Ocean and Planetary Sciences said: "This discovery is like an open wound on the surface of the Earth. Was the crust never there? Was it once there but then torn away on huge geological faults?

On February 28, 2007, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft made its closest approach to Jupiter on its ultimate journey to Pluto. This flyby gave scientists a unique opportunity to study Jupiter using the package of instruments available on New Horizons, while coordinating observations from both space- and ground-based telescopes including NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Scientists at North Carolina State University have discovered that the fungus-like pathogen that caused the 1840s Irish potato famine originally came from the Andes of South America.

By comparing the sequences of both the nuclear and the cellular powerhouse, mitochondria, of nearly 100 pathogen samples from South America, Central America, North America and Europe, Dr.

A meditation technique promoted by the controversial Maharishi
organization of Iowa claims significant decreases the severity of congestive heart failure in a small pilot study published in Ethnicity&Disease (Winter 2007).

The authors from the University of Pennsylvania evaluated 23 African American men and women, average age 64, who were recently hospitalized with New York Heart Association class II or III congestive heart failure. Participants were randomized to either the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique or health education—in addition to usual medical care.

New research shows that a form of vitamin A used to treat acute promyelocytic leukemia induces changes in an unusual class of small molecules called microRNAs (miRNAs) in the leukemic cells.

The study also shows that three of these miRNAs inhibit the action of two genes important for cancer development, helping to explain how the drug works.

The drug is called all-trans-retinoic acid (ATRA) and it is considered the gold standard for treating the disease.

The study showed that ATRA raises the levels of three particular miRNAs in leukemia cells and that this rise coincides with a fall in activity of two important cancer-causing genes. The three are identified as miRNA-15b, miRNA-16-1 and let-7.

An international group of scientists has expanded the universal language for the genes of both disease-causing and beneficial microbes and their hosts. This expanded "lingua franca," called The Gene Ontology (GO), gives researchers a common set of terms to describe the interactions between a microbe and its host.

The Plant-Associated Microbe Gene Ontology (PAMGO) consortium and the GO consortium staff at the European Bioinformatics Institute approved and released more than 450 new terms for describing gene products involved in microbe-host interactions.