news 2012

Medicine/Pharmacology - Life Sciences - 23.05
Improving bovine TB diagnosis
Research at the University suggests the failure of the current bovine tuberculosis (TB) eradication programme could be partly due to a parasitic infection that hinders the tests used in cattle to diagnose bovine TB.

Life Sciences - Medicine/Pharmacology - 22.05
Getting smarter while getting older
Brains that maintain healthy nerve connections as we age help keep us sharp in later life. An Age UK-funded project at the University has found that older people with robust brain wiring - that is, the nerve fibres that connect different, distant brain areas - can process information quickly and that this makes them generally smarter.

Life Sciences - History/Philosophy - 22.05
Modern dog breeds “genetically disconnected” from ancient ancestors
Modern dog breeds “genetically disconnected” from ancient ancestors Cross-breeding of dogs over thousands of years has made it extremely difficult to trace the ancient genetic roots of today's pets, according to a new study led by Durham University.

Life Sciences - Medicine/Pharmacology - 20.05
Study points to brain malaria treatments
University scientists have taken part in research that points to new treatments for the most lethal form of malaria. Researchers have pinpointed a set of genes that enable the malaria parasite to infect blood vessels in the brain.

Life Sciences - Medicine/Pharmacology - 17.05
Blast trauma study suggests how to protect troops
An analysis of the brains of military personnel exposed to bomb blasts or concussive injuries, combined with experiments simulating the effect of blasts on the brain, suggests how soldiers could be better protected from improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Life Sciences - Medicine/Pharmacology - 16.05
Researchers lead world’s largest study into pre-eclampsia
PA 134/12 Researchers from The University of Nottingham are leading the largest ever international research project into the genetics of the potentially fatal condition pre-eclampsia. The research will aim to provide new insights into the prevention, prediction and treatment of the disease, which kills up to 40,000 women and almost one million babies every year worldwide.

Life Sciences - Medicine/Pharmacology - 15.05
Let’s get moving: Unravelling how locomotion starts
Scientists at the University of Bristol have shed new light on one of the great unanswered questions of neuroscience: how the brain initiates rhythmic movements like walking, running and swimming.

Life Sciences - Medicine/Pharmacology - 15.05
Study highlights how superbug spreads
Hospitals in large cities act as breeding grounds for the superbug MRSA prior to it spreading to smaller hospitals. University researchers found evidence that shows for the first time how the superbug spreads between different hospitals throughout the country.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Life Sciences - 14.05
Researchers explain different mechanisms of pain
Researchers at the University of Leeds have found a previously unknown mechanism through which pain is signalled by nerve cells. A discovery that could explain the current failings in the drug development process for painkillers and which may offer opportunities for a new approach.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Life Sciences - 10.05
Virus ’barcodes’ offer rapid detection of mutated strains
Researchers at the University of Leeds are developing a way to 'barcode' viral diseases to rapidly test new outbreaks for potentially lethal mutations. Julian Hiscox and John Barr of the University's Faculty of Biological Sciences are working with the Health Protection Agency Porton (HPA) to build a bank of molecular signatures that will help identify the severity of virus infection from characteristic changes seen in cells.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Life Sciences - 9.05
Blood test could show women at risk of Postnatal Depression
Researchers at Warwick Medical School have discovered a way of identifying which women are most at risk of postnatal depression (PND) by checking for specific genetic variants. The findings could lead to the development of a simple, accurate blood test which checks for the likelihood of developing the condition.

Life Sciences - Environmental Sciences - 9.05
Antarctic octopuses 10,000km apart “genetically similar”
Scientists at the University have found that genetic information on the Antarctic octopus supports studies indicating that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could have collapsed during its history, possibly as recently as 200,000 years ago.   Genes from more than 450 Turquet's octopuses, collected from species in the Southern Ocean that surrounds Ant

Life Sciences - 8.05
Sperm crawl and collide on way to egg, say scientists
Scientists at the Universities of Warwick and Birmingham have shed new light on how sperm navigate the female reproductive tract, ‘crawling' along the channel walls and swimming around corners; with frequent collisions.

Life Sciences - Medicine/Pharmacology - 8.05
Pufferfish at the `beak´ of evolution
Pufferfish at the `beak´ of evolution Prickly pufferfish could hold the key to why humans do not continually replace their teeth and may lead to advances in dental therapies. New research focusing on tooth development in the deadly fish -unchanged through evolution - shows that after the first generation of teeth the programme for continued tooth replacement modifies to form a distinctive and unusual `parrot like´ beak.

Life Sciences - Chemistry - 4.05
Separating signal from noise in living cells
A mathematician from the University of Bristol has teamed up with a biologist from the University of Edinburgh to address a major problem in molecular biology.