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Ice-breaker Polarstern to explore uncharted seafloor

Huge areas of sea floor (around 3,250 km?) have been freed up by the collapse 4 years ago of the Larsen B platform along the Antarctic Peninsula. Polarstern, the research flagship of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, will shortly conduct the first major biological research there. Forty-seven scientists from more than a dozen different nationalities will focus on the biological characteristics of this blank spot, from November 2006 to January 2007.

Rand study says renewable energy could play larger role in US energy future

Renewable resources could produce 25 percent of the electricity and motor vehicle fuels used in the United States by 2025 at little or no additional cost if fossil fuel prices remain high enough and the cost of producing renewable energy continues falling in accord with historical trends, according to a Rand Corp. study issued today. The study was conducted within the Environment, Energy, and Economic Development program of Rand, a nonprofit research organization.

Climate change creates dramatic decline in red-winged black bird population

Global warming strikes again. A University of Illinois researcher reports that a red-winged black bird population in Ontario, Canada has decreased by 50 percent since 1972. The decrease is related to a positive shift in the North Atlantic Oscillation which has resulted in warmer, wetter winters in the southeastern United States.

Wild gorillas carriers of a SIV virus close to the AIDS virus

An article in Nature on Thursday 9/11 reports the discovery of gorillas living in the wild in Central Africa infected with an HIV-1 related virus, called SIVgor, genetically close to an HIV-1 variant called group O. This discovery ask the crucial question on the source and route for infection of the gorillas. It broadens substantially the scope of research on the ability of these viruses to cross over from one species to another.

Developing uses for sugar-cane bagasse: Biotechnology applied to the paper industry

Sugar-cane bagasse is a fibrous waste-product of the sugar refining industry, which can be recycled as a raw material for paper manufacture. IRD researchers have elaborated a new bioprocess that transforms the bagasse into paper pulp and also produces an industrially useful enzyme, laccase. The process is based on the metabolism of a filamentous fungus. Preliminary laboratory trials show that this integrated bioprocess can be adapted to other potential fibre-yielding materials, opening up promising applications for the paper industry.

Pourqui? lab identifies genes involved in formation of vertebral precursors

Mary Lee Dequeant, Ph.D., a Predoctoral Researcher at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, and Olivier Pourqui?, Ph.D., Stowers Institute Investigator and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, are the first and last authors, respectively, on a paper that identifies a network of cyclic genes that shed light on the molecular basis of spine formation in the embryo.

Artificial cornea offers better results for infants, some blind patients

Infants and adults who are blind due to a cloudy or damaged cornea are seeing some remarkable results thanks to a new version of an artificial implant that takes the place of the cornea, the clear covering of the eye that serves as our window on the world.

Queen’s Surveillance Project benchmarks global attitudes about being watched

Almost half of Canadians and even more Americans say they find new laws aimed at protecting national security post 9/11 intrusive. That’s just one of the wide-ranging findings of a survey on the surveillance and privacy attitudes and experiences of 9,000 people in eight countries initiated by the Queen’s University-based Surveillance Project.

Ecology :: ALTRAN unveils its energy efficiency concepts solutions

ALTRAN, the European leader in innovation and high technology consulting, unveiled at the EcoBuilding Performance Forum on November 8-9 in Paris, three new eco-innovative concepts, to enable the best use of energy in the building and urban environment sectors. The “eco-innovation” is one of the pillars of the environment policy recently adopted by the EU, emphasizing that a “green” product is not enough, but that the product’s life cycle must be energy efficient.

Kidney Transplant :: Obese kidney transplant patients twice as likely to suffer organ failure

Six percent of obese kidney transplant patients die in the first year and 14 percent suffer transplant failures. The figures for non obese patients are three percent and eight percent. Experts from seven university hospitals in the Netherlands studied 2067 patients. Their finding appear in the November issue of Transplant International.