A pair of mineral clues recently found in a fossil seafloor may be signs that ancient bacteria helped create banded iron formations — Precambrian-aged sedimentary rocks known for their vibrant, reddish- brown-colored thin layers — that researchers use to reconstruct ancient interactions between the atmosphere, the ocean and the seafloor.
Category Archives: Outlets
Dynamic duo helps to heal irradiated mice
An antibiotic and a protein can work together to fight radiation-induced infections better than either can manage alone. Doctors already use antibiotics to treat radiation sickness. But the addition of a protein from the immune system — bactericidal/permeability-increasing protein (BPI), which acts against poisons called endotoxins — improves the survival rate of irradiated mice, according to a study published today in Science Translational Medicine Continue reading Dynamic duo helps to heal irradiated mice
Vikings Navigated With Translucent Crystals?
In some Icelandic sagas—embellished stories of Viking life—sailors relied on so-called sunstones to locate the sun’s position and steer their ships on cloudy days.
The stone would’ve worked by detecting a property of sunlight called polarization. Continue reading Vikings Navigated With Translucent Crystals?
Transatlantic PML
The European Medicine Agency and US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published in September the proceedings of a joint workshop held to address questions related to progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), a rare and sometimes fatal brain disease that can occur as an adverse drug reaction to some therapeutics that affect immunological functions. The meeting attended by 170 regulators, academic scientists, funding bodies and clinical researchers, called for work on animal models, predictive biomarkers and long-term studies. “No one company is going to answer all the questions; they’re going to be answered by research consortia,” says co-convener and European Medicines Agency (EMA) pharmacovigilance head Peter Arlett. Continue reading Transatlantic PML