Tag Archives: Biology

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

Spanish institute faces cash crisis

A flagship biomedical research facility in Valencia, built during the heady days of the last economic boom, is now going bust. It is a casualty of Spain’s deep spending cuts and, some say, of poor management.

The Prince Felipe Research Centre (CIPF), which hosts 260 scientists and has produced high-profile publications in regenerative medicine and biochemistry, announced an emergency financial plan on 19 October that would see about 100 research staff lose their jobs, and roughly halve salaries for those who remain. Continue reading Spanish institute faces cash crisis

Miniature Art Masters

Microbiologist Rosa María Montes Estellés once infected a church mural with bacteria. But it was for a good cause: The bacteria ate their way through 4 centuries of grime encrusted on a mural at Santos Juanes Church in Valencia, Spain, exposing the underlying colors.Bacteria are only the latest tool in the art restorer’s arsenal. Restorers use microabrasion, burly bristles, and chemical washes to strip layers of pollution from buildings, statues, and paintings. But each method has shortcomings: They can put the underlying artwork at risk or poison workers, and they often require slow and painstaking manual labor. So in 2005, a group of Italian art restorers tried a new tack: They bred bacteria to remove an obstinate layer of collagen from the murals of Campo Santo di Pisa. Continue reading Miniature Art Masters

When being colourful doesn’t pay

Nuclear accidents can have devastating consequences for the people and animals living in the vicinity of the damaged power plants, but they also give researchers a unique opportunity to study the effects of radiation on populations that would be impossible to recreate in the lab.

Tim Mousseau, who directs the Chernobyl Research Initiative at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, together with an international team, is studying the long-term ecological and health consequences of the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine. Mousseau has been studying Chernobyl since 1998 and his latest work, carried out with colleagues in France and published in Oecologia last month, finds that bird species with orange feathers living in the fallout zone seem to be more susceptible to radiation than their drabber gray and black fellows. They suggest that production of the more colourful pigments consumes antioxidant molecules that would otherwise confer protection against radiation damage, and that this molecular trade-off is shaping bird populations around the former nuclear power plant.
Continue reading When being colourful doesn’t pay