The Historical Importance Of Jerusalem's Geology

A view of the Old City in Jerusalem. (Credit: iStockphoto/Ash Laidlaw)

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Bedrock Of A Holy City: The Historical Importance Of Jerusalem's Geology

Jerusalem's geology has been crucial in molding it into one of the most religiously important cities on the planet, according to a new study.

It started in the year 1000 BCE, when the Jebusite city's water system proved to be its undoing. The Spring of Gihon sat just outside the city walls, a vital resource in the otherwise parched region. But King David, in tent on taking the city, sent an elite group of his soldiers into a karst limestone tunnel that fed the spring. His men climbed up through a cave system hollowed out by flowing water, infiltrated beneath the city walls, and attacked from the inside. David made the city the capital of his new kingdom, and Israel was born.

In a new analysis of historical documents and detailed geological maps, Michael Bramnik of Northern Illinois University will add new geological accents to this pivotal moment in human history in a presentation October 20 at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Portland, Oregon.

"The karst geology played a major role in the city's selection by David for his capital," Bramnik said.

It proved to be a wise decision. One of David's successors, King Hezekiah watched as the warlike Assyrian horde, a group of vastly superior warriors toppled city after city in the region. Fearing that they'd soon come for Jerusalem, he too took advantage of the limestone bedrock and dug a 550 meter-long (1804 feet) tunnel that rerouted the spring's water inside the city's fortified walls.

The Assyrians laid siege to the city in 701 BCE, but failed to conquer it. It was the only city in history to successfully fend them off.

"Surviving the Assyrian siege put it into the people's minds that it was because of their faith that they survived," Bramnik said. "So when they were captured by the Babylonians in 587, they felt it was because their faith had faltered."

Until then, the Jewish religion had been loosely associated. But that conviction united the Jews through the Babylonian Captivity, "and so began modern congregational religion," Bramnik said.

In an arid region rife with conflict, water security is as important today as it was during biblical times. While the groundwater for Jerusalem is recharged surface waters in central Israel, other settlements' water sources are not publicly available for research. Bramnik's efforts to find detailed hydrological maps were often rebuffed, or the maps were said to be non-existent.

"I think Jerusalem's geology and the geology of Israel is still significant to life in the region, perhaps even reaching into the political arena," he said.

The talk, The Bedrock of Monotheism: The Geology of Jerusalem and Its Historical and Religious Implications, is to be presented on October 20, 2009, at the Oregon Convention Center.
Adapted from materials provided by Geological Society of America, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Ancient 'Monster' Insect: 'Unicorn' Fly Never Before Observed

 Just in time for Halloween, researchers have announced the discovery of a new, real-world "monster" -- what they are calling a "unicorn" fly that lived about 100 million years ago and is being described as a new family, genus and species of fly never before observed.

A single, incredibly well-preserved specimen of the tiny but scary-looking fly was preserved for eternity in Burmese amber, and it had a small horn emerging from the top of its head, topped by three eyes that would have given it the ability to see predators coming. But despite that clever defense mechanism, it was apparently an evolutionary dead end that later disappeared.

"No other insect ever discovered has a horn like that, and there's no animal at all with a horn that has eyes on top," said George Poinar, Jr., a professor of zoology at Oregon State University who just announced the new species in Cretaceous Research, a professional journal.

"It was probably a docile little creature that fed on the pollen and nectar of tiny tropical flowers," Poinar said. "But it was really bizarre looking. One of the reviewers of the study called it a monster, and I have to admit it had a face only another fly could have loved. I was thinking of making some masks based on it for Halloween."

This fly lived in the jungles of Myanmar and was found trapped in amber that was from 97 to 110 million years old. The gooey, viscous tree sap that flowed down over the fly and later turned to stone preserved its features in lifelike detail, including its strange horn topped by three functional eyes.

"If we had seen nothing but the wings of this insect, it would have looked similar to some other flies in the family Bibionomorpha," Poinar said. "But this was near the end of the Early Cretacous when a lot of strange evolutionary adaptations were going on. Its specialized horn and eyes must have given this insect an advantage on very tiny flowers, but didn't serve as well when larger flowers evolved. So it went extinct."

Poinar named the new fly Cascoplecia insolitis -- from the Latin "cascus" for old and "insolates" for strange and unusual.

The fly also had other very unusual characteristics, the study found, such as an odd-shaped antenna, unusually long legs that would have helped it crawl over flowers and extremely small vestigial mandibles that would have limited it to nibbling on very tiny particles of food.

Pollen grains found on the legs of the fly suggest that it primarily must have fed on flowers.

This fly lived during the time of the dinosaurs, but also in a period when Triassic and Jurassic species were becoming extinct, modern groups were appearing and angiosperms, or flowering plants, were diversifying. Some of the characteristics of the fly were common to other families found around that time, but others were extremely different -- especially the horn with eyes on top.

The specimen found in amber was well-preserved, lacking only the rear left portion of the abdomen and a portion of the left hind leg. It's rare to find specimens with essentially a complete body as well as wings, scientists noted in the report. The fossil came from an amber mine in the Hukawng Valley of Myanmar, first excavated in 2001.

Poinar is an expert on insects and other life forms that have been preserved in amber, and has used them as clues to create detailed portraits of ancient ecosystems.

"None of the specialized body characters of Cascoplecia occurs on previously reported Cretaceous bibionids," the report concluded. "This 'unicorn' fly was one of the oddities of the Cretaceous world and was obviously an evolutionary dead end."

Unless, of course, it shows up once again as a scary looking Halloween costume -- with wings, grasping claws, and a horn with three piercing eyes on top.
Adapted from materials provided by Oregon State University.

Light And Sound Vibrations Trapped Together In Nanocrystal For First Time

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have created a nanoscale crystal device that, for the first time, allows scientists to confine both light and sound vibrations in the same tiny space.

"This is a whole new concept," notes Oskar Painter, associate professor of applied physics at Caltech. Painter is the principal investigator on the paper describing the work, which was published this week in the online edition of the journal Nature. "People have known how to manipulate light, and they've known how to manipulate sound. But they hadn't realized that we can manipulate both at the same time, and that the waves will interact very strongly within this single structure."

Indeed, Painter points out, the interactions between sound and light in this device -- dubbed an optomechanical crystal -- can result in mechanical vibrations with frequencies as high as tens of gigahertz, or 10 billion cycles per second. Being able to achieve such frequencies, he explains, gives these devices the ability to send large amounts of information, and opens up a wide array of potential applications -- everything from lightwave communication systems to biosensors capable of detecting (or weighing) a single macromolecule. It could also, Painter says, be used as a research tool by scientists studying nanomechanics. "These structures would give a mass sensitivity that would rival conventional nanoelectromechanical systems because light in these structures is more sensitive to motion than a conventional electrical system is."

"And all of this," he adds, "can be done on a silicon microchip."

Optomechanical crystals focus on the most basic units -- or quanta -- of light and sound. (These are called photons and phonons, respectively.) As Painter notes, there has been a rich history of research into both photonic and phononic crystals, which use tiny energy traps called bandgaps to capture quanta of light or sound within their structures.

What hadn't been done before was to put those two types of crystals together and see what they are capable of doing. That is what the Caltech team has done.

"We now have the ability to manipulate sound and light in the same nanoplatform, and are able to interconvert energy between the two systems," says Painter. "And we can engineer these in nearly limitless ways."

The volume in which the light and sound are simultaneously confined is more than 100,000 times smaller than that of a human cell, notes Caltech graduate student Matt Eichenfield, the paper's first author. "This does two things," he says. "First, the interactions of the light and sound get stronger as the volume to which they are confined decreases. Second, the amount of mass that has to move to create the sound wave gets smaller as the volume decreases. We made the volume in which the light and sound live so small that the mass that vibrates to make the sound is about ten times less than a trillionth of a gram."

Eichenfield points out that, in addition to measuring high-frequency sound waves, the team demonstrated that it's actually possible to produce these waves using only light. "We can now convert light waves into microwave-frequency sound waves on the surface of a silicon microchip," he says.

These sound waves, he adds, are analogous to the light waves of a laser. "The way we have designed the system makes it possible to use these sound waves by routing them around on the chip, and making them interact with other on-chip systems. And, of course, we can then detect all these interactions again by using the light. Essentially, optomechanical crystals provide a whole new on-chip architecture in which light can generate, interact with, and detect high-frequency sound waves."

These optomechanical crystals were created as an offshoot of previous work done by Painter and colleagues on a nanoscale "zipper cavity," in which the mechanical properties of light and its interactions with motion were strengthened and enhanced.

Like the zipper cavity, optomechanical crystals trap light; the difference is that the crystals trap -- and intensify -- sound waves, as well. Similarly, while the zipper cavities worked by funneling the light into the gap between two nanobeams -- allowing the researchers to detect the beams' motion relative to one another -- optomechanical crystals work on an even tinier scale, trapping both light and sound within a single nanobeam.

"Here we can actually see very small vibrations of sound trapped well inside a single 'string,' using the light trapped inside that string," says Eichenfield. "Importantly, although the method of sensing the motion is very different, we didn't lose the exquisite sensitivity to motion that the zipper had. We were able to keep the sensitivity to motion high while making another huge leap down in mass."

"As a technology, optomechanical crystals provide a platform on which to create planar circuits of sound and light," says Kerry Vahala, the Ted and Ginger Jenkins Professor of Information Science and Technology and professor of applied physics, and coauthor on the Nature paper. "These circuits can include an array of functions for generation, detection, and control. Moreover," he says, "optomechanical crystal structures are fabricated using materials and tools that are similar to those found in the semiconductor and photonics industries. Collectively, this means that phonons have joined photons and electrons as possible ways to manipulate and process information on a chip."

And these information-processing possibilities are well within reach, notes Painter. "It's not one plus one equals two, but one plus one equals ten in terms of what you can do with these things. All of these applications are much closer than they were before."

"This novel approach to bringing both light and sound together and letting them play off of each other exemplifies the forward-thinking work being done by the Engineering and Applied Science (EAS) division," says Ares Rosakis, chair of EAS and Theodore von Kármán Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering at Caltech.

Other authors on the Nature paper, "Optomechanical crystals," include Caltech graduate student Jasper Chan and postdoctoral scholar Ryan Camacho. Funding for their work was provided by a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency seed grant and by grants from the National Science Foundation.
Adapted from materials provided by California Institute of Technology, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Mantis Shrimp Eyes Could Show Way To Better DVD And CD players

The remarkable eyes of a marine crustacean could inspire the next generation of DVD and CD players, according to a new study from the University of Bristol published today in Nature Photonics.

The mantis shrimps in the study are found on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and have the most complex vision systems known to science. They can see in twelve colours (humans see in only three) and can distinguish between different forms of polarized light.

Special light-sensitive cells in mantis shrimp eyes act as quarter-wave plates -- which can rotate the plane of the oscillations (the polarization) of a light wave as it travels through it. This capability makes it possible for mantis shrimps to convert linearly polarized light to circularly polarized light and vice versa. Manmade quarter-wave plates perform this essential function in CD and DVD players and in circular polarizing filters for cameras.

However, these artificial devices only tend to work well for one colour of light while the natural mechanism in the mantis shrimp's eyes works almost perfectly across the whole visible spectrum -- from near-ultra violet to infra-red.

Dr Nicholas Roberts, lead author of the Nature Photonics paper said: "Our work reveals for the first time the unique design and mechanism of the quarter-wave plate in the mantis shrimp's eye. It really is exceptional -- out-performing anything we humans have so far been able to create."

Exactly why the mantis shrimp needs such exquisite sensitivity to circularly polarized light isn't clear. However, polarization vision is used by animals for sexual signalling or secret communication that avoids the attention of other animals, especially predators. It could also assist in the finding and catching of prey by improving the clarity of images underwater. If this mechanism in the mantis shrimp provides an evolutionary advantage, it would be easily selected for as it only requires small changes to existing properties of the cell in the eye.

"What's particularly exciting is how beautifully simple it is," Dr Roberts continued. "This natural mechanism, comprised of cell membranes rolled into tubes, completely outperforms synthetic designs.

"It could help us make better optical devices in the future using liquid crystals that have been chemically engineered to mimic the properties of the cells in the mantis shrimp's eye."

This wouldn't be the first time humans have looked to the natural world for new ideas, for example the lobster's compound eye recently inspired the design of an X-ray detector for an astronomical telescope.

The mantis shrimp research was conducted at the University of Bristol's School of Biological Sciences in collaboration with colleagues at UMBC, USA and the University of Queensland, Australia.

Journal reference:
NW Roberts, T-H Chiou, NJ Marshall and TW Cronin. A biological quarter-wave retarder with excellent achromaticity in the visible wavelength region. Nature Photonics, 2009; DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2009.189
Adapted from materials provided by University of Bristol.

Clean Smells Promote Moral Behavior, Study Suggests

People are unconsciously fairer and more generous when they are in clean-smelling environments, according to a soon-to-be published study led by a Brigham Young University professor.

The research found a dramatic improvement in ethical behavior with just a few spritzes of citrus-scented Windex.

Katie Liljenquist, assistant professor of organizational leadership at BYU's Marriott School of Management, is the lead author on the piece in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science. Co-authors are Chen-Bo Zhong of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management and Adam Galinsky of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

The researchers see implications for workplaces, retail stores and other organizations that have relied on traditional surveillance and security measures to enforce rules.

"Companies often employ heavy-handed interventions to regulate conduct, but they can be costly or oppressive," said Liljenquist, whose office smells quite average. "This is a very simple, unobtrusive way to promote ethical behavior."

Perhaps the findings could be applied at home, too, Liljenquist said with a smile. "Could be that getting our kids to clean up their rooms might help them clean up their acts, too."

The study titled "The Smell of Virtue" was unusually simple and conclusive. Participants engaged in several tasks, the only difference being that some worked in unscented rooms, while others worked in rooms freshly spritzed with Windex.

The first experiment evaluated fairness.

As a test of whether clean scents would enhance reciprocity, participants played a classic "trust game." Subjects received $12 of real money (allegedly sent by an anonymous partner in another room). They had to decide how much of it to either keep or return to their partners who had trusted them to divide it fairly. Subjects in clean-scented rooms were less likely to exploit the trust of their partners, returning a significantly higher share of the money.
The average amount of cash given back by the people in the "normal" room was $2.81. But the people in the clean-scented room gave back an average of $5.33.

The second experiment evaluated whether clean scents would encourage charitable behavior.

Subjects indicated their interest in volunteering with a campus organization for a Habitat for Humanity service project and their interest in donating funds to the cause.
Participants surveyed in a Windex-ed room were significantly more interested in volunteering (4.21 on a 7-point scale) than those in a normal room (3.29).
22 percent of Windex-ed room participants said they'd like to donate money, compared to only 6 percent of those in a normal room.

Follow-up questions confirmed that participants didn't notice the scent in the room and that their mood at the time of the experiment didn't affect the outcomes.

"Basically, our study shows that morality and cleanliness can go hand-in-hand," said Galinsky of the Kellogg School. "Researchers have known for years that scents play an active role in reviving positive or negative experiences. Now, our research can offer more insight into the links between people's charitable actions and their surroundings."

While this study examined the influence of the physical environment on morality, Zhong and Liljenquist previously published work that demonstrated an intimate link between morality and physical cleanliness. Their 2006 paper in Science reported that transgressions activated a desire to be physically cleansed.

Liljenquist is now researching how perceptions of cleanliness shape our impressions of people and organizations. "The data tell a compelling story about how much we rely upon cleanliness cues to make a wide range of judgments about others," she said.
Adapted from materials provided by Brigham Young University.

Volcanoes Played Pivotal Role In Ancient Ice Age, Mass Extinction

Researchers at Ohio State University have discovered that volcanoes played a pivotal role in a deadly ice age that occurred nearly half a billion years ago. This photograph shows volcanic ash beds -- formed around 455 million years ago -- layered in the rock of the Nashville Dome area in central Tennessee. (Credit: Photo by Matthew Saltzman, courtesy of Ohio State University)

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Researchers here have discovered the pivotal role that volcanoes played in a deadly ice age 450 million years ago.

Perhaps ironically, these volcanoes first caused global warming -- by releasing massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

When they stopped erupting, Earth's climate was thrown off balance, and the ice age began.

The discovery underscores the importance of carbon in Earth's climate today, said Matthew Saltzman, associate professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University.

The results will appear in the journal Geology, in a paper now available online.

Previously, Saltzman and his team linked this same ice age to the rise of the Appalachian Mountains. As the exposed rock weathered, chemical reactions pulled carbon from Earth's atmosphere, causing a global cooling which ultimately killed two-thirds of all species on the planet.

Now the researchers have discovered the other half of the story: giant volcanoes that formed during the closing of the proto-Atlantic Ocean -- known as the Iapetus Ocean -- set the stage for the rise of the Appalachians and the ice age that followed.

"Our model shows that these Atlantic volcanoes were spewing carbon into the atmosphere at the same time the Appalachians were removing it," Saltzman explained. "For nearly 10 million years, the climate was at a stalemate. Then the eruptions abruptly stopped, and atmospheric carbon levels fell well below what they were in the time before volcanism. That kicked off the ice age," he said.

This is the first evidence that a decrease in carbon from volcanic degassing -- combined with continued weathering of the Appalachians -- caused the long-enigmatic glaciation and extinction in the Ordovician period.

Here is the picture the researchers have assembled: 460 million years ago, during the Ordovician, volcanoes along the margin of what is now the Atlantic Ocean spewed massive amounts carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, turning the world into a hothouse. Lava from those volcanoes eventually collided with North America to form the Appalachian Mountains.

Acid rain -- rich in carbon dioxide -- pelted the newly exposed Appalachian rock and wore it away. Chemical reactions trapped the carbon in the resulting sediment, which formed reefs in the vast seas that covered North America.

For about 10 million years, the volcanoes continued to add carbon to the atmosphere as the Appalachians removed it, so the hothouse conditions remained stable. Life flourished in the warm oceans, including abundant species of trilobites and brachiopods.

Then, 450 million years ago, the eruptions stopped. But the Appalachians continued weathering, and atmospheric carbon levels plummeted. The Earth swung from a hothouse to an icehouse.

By 445 million years ago, glaciers had covered the south pole on top of the supercontinent of Gondwana (which would eventually break apart to form the continents of the southern hemisphere). Two-thirds of all species had perished.

When they started this research, Saltzman and his team knew that Earth's climate must have changed drastically at the end of the Ordovician. But they didn't know for certain that volcanoes were the driving force, explained Seth Young, who did this research for his doctoral degree at Ohio State. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at Indiana University.

"This was not necessarily what we expected when we started investigating, but as we combined our data sources, the story began to fall into place," Young said.

Using a computer model, they drew together measurements of isotopes of chemical elements -- including strontium from rocks in Nevada and neodymium from rocks in Virginia and Pennsylvania -- with measurements of volcanic ash beds in the same locations. Then they factored in temperature models developed by other researchers.

The ash deposits demonstrated when the volcanoes stopped erupting; the strontium levels indicated that large amounts of volcanic rock were being eroded and the sediment was flooding Earth's oceans during this time; and the neodymium levels pinpointed the Appalachians as the source of the sediment.

The new findings mesh well with what scientists know about these ancient proto-Atlantic volcanoes, which are thought to have produced the largest eruptions in Earth's history. They issued enough lava to form the Appalachians, enough ash to cover the far ends of the earth, and enough carbon to heat the globe. Atmospheric carbon levels grew 20 times higher than they are today.

This study shows that when those volcanoes stopped erupting, carbon levels dropped, and the climate swung dramatically back to cold. The timing coincides with today's best estimates of temperature fluctuations in the Ordovician.

"The ash beds start building up at the same time the Appalachian weathering begins, but then the record of volcanism ends, and the temperature drops," Saltzman said. "Knowing these details can help us understand how carbon in the atmosphere is changing Earth's climate today."

Next, the researchers will examine the role of the ancient volcanic ash more closely. While the ash was in the atmosphere -- before it settled around the globe -- it might have blotted out the sun, and cooled the earth somewhat. Saltzman and his team want to make some estimate of this short-term cooling effect to refine their computer model.

Meanwhile, Young is just starting to re-analyze the same rock samples, this time looking for a different isotope -- sulfur. This, he hopes, will offer clues to how much oxygen was in the oceans, and how that oxygen may have affected life in the Ordovician.

Other contributors to this work include Kenneth Foland, professor emeritus of earth sciences, and Jeff Linder, a research associate, both of Ohio State; and Lee Kump, professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State University.

This research was partly supported by the National Science Foundation.

Journal reference:
Seth A. Young, Matthew R. Saltzman, Kenneth A. Foland, Jeff S. Linder, and Lee R. Kump. A major drop in seawater 87Sr/86Sr during the Middle Ordovician (Darriwilian): Links to volcanism and climate? Geology, 2009; 37 (10): 951 DOI: 10.1130/G30152A.1
Adapted from materials provided by Ohio State University. Original article written by Pam Frost Gorder.

Ice Age Mammoths Pass Far Below 40 Degrees North Latitude

Climate Events Let Ice Age Mammoths Pass Far Below 40 Degrees North Latitude

 Europe’s southern-most skeletal remains of Mammuthus primigenius were unearthed in a moor on the 37°N latitude. This is considerably south of the inhospitable habitat than one usually imagines for mammoths, and for the characteristically dry and cold climate that prevailed during the ice ages in the north of Eurasia.

The remains of the ice age giants from Padul were examined in a joint scientific project of four research institutions, namely, the Quaternary Paleontology arm of the Senckenberg Research Institutes of Germany, the Universities of Madrid and Oviedo in Spain, and the Natural History Museum of Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

"These woolly mammoths finds do not belong to stray animals who only chanced to head south, but belonged to Granada's permanent inhabitants at this time”, says Diego Álvarez-Lao from the University of Oviedo. Dick Mol, ice age expert at the Natural History Museum of Rotterdam adds: “Nevertheless, the Spanish mammoths have not differed anatomically from their congeners in more northern regions.”

Climate- and environmental data show that it was not the longing for summery temperatures or the chirp of crickets that lured the ice age giants to the south, but a diet of grass, various herbs and shrubs. The expansion of the mammoth steppe with its typical vegetation allowed the wandering of the giants and other ice age animals below the 40° N latitude and far to the south.

Nuria García from the University Complutense de Madrid explains: "Fossil plants which have been found in drill cores from scientific drilling in Spain and the nearby Mediterranean Sea, as well as our investigations of the Padul sediments indicate that the animals lived on the plants of the mammoth steppe.”

Among the discoverers of Europe's southern-most finds is Senckenberg scientist Ralf-Dietrich Kahlke, who focused on the reasons that Mammuthus primigenius passed below the 40°N latitude. “A comparison with other sites between the 38°N and 36°N latitude shows that the animals pushed south 30 to 40 thousand years ago also in areas outside of Europe”, the ice age paleontologist explains and demonstrates with maps. Thus the southern-most sites of the ice age giants lie on a belt which stretches from Western Europe via Georgia, the Siberian Baikal region to eastern China and from Korea till the Midwest of America.

Nevertheless the dispersal of the giants was blocked now and then. The impressively high Sierra Nevada at Padul formed a natural barrier. Likewise, the Rocky Mountains in North America had a similar effect. Other obstacles were areas that did not offer suitable food, as desert-like regions or the Grait Plains of North America which expanded on account of a vegetation change.

The present study documents for the first time the southerly push of Mammuthus primigenius in Europe and points out that their migration to southern Spain and Italy happened the same time as similar advances into eastern China, to the north of Japan and to Kamchatka. The team of scientists suggests that this phenomenon is related to coupled climate events in the northeast Atlantic and the northwest Pacific. Dr. Kahlke concludes: „This is proof that global mechanisms which regulated climate already during the ice age also influenced vegetation and with it also animal migration”.

Journal reference:
Álvarez-Lao et al. The Padul mammoth finds — On the southernmost record of Mammuthus primigenius in Europe and its southern spread during the Late Pleistocene. Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology, 2009; 278 (1-4): 57 DOI: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2009.04.011
Adapted from materials provided by Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum, via AlphaGalileo.

Link between alcohol and cancer

Link Between Alcohol And Cancer Explained: Alcohol Activates Cellular Changes That Make Tumor Cells Spread

Link Between Alcohol And Cancer Explained: Alcohol Activates Cellular Changes That Make Tumor Cells Spread

In a study published in a recent issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, the researchers found that alcohol stimulates what is called the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, in which run-of-the-mill cancer cells morph into a more aggressive form and begin to spread throughout the body.

"Our data are the first to show that alcohol turns on certain signals inside a cell that are involved in this critical transition," said Christopher Forsyth, PhD, assistant professor of medicine and biochemistry at Rush University Medical Center and lead author of the study.

The epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition is a hot area of research right now, implicated in the process whereby cancer cells become metastatic. A large body of laboratory and clinical research suggests that it plays a key role in making cancer cells aggressive.

"Cancer cells become dangerous when they metastasize," Forsyth said. "Surgery can remove a tumor, but aggressive tumor cells invade tissues throughout the body and take over. If we can thwart this transition, we can limit cancer's toll."

The researchers treated colon and breast cancer cell lines with alcohol and then looked for the biochemical hallmarks of the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, including evidence of a transcription factor called Snail and of the receptor for epidermal growth factor. Snail controls the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition; when overexpressed in mice, it induces the formation of multiple tumors. Epidermal growth factor is required by many cancer cells. "They need lots of it," Forsyth said. "They are addicted to it."

Laboratory tests showed that alcohol activated both these and other biochemicals characteristic of the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition. Tests also demonstrated that the alcohol-treated cells had lost their tight junctions with adjacent cells, a preparation for migrating, as metastatic cells do.

In addition, Forsyth and his colleagues found that the same roster of biomarkers was activated in normal intestinal cells treated with alcohol, suggesting that alcohol not only worsens the profile of existing cancer cells but also may initiate cancer by stimulating the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition.

Journal reference:
Forsyth et al. Alcohol Stimulates Activation of Snail, Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Signaling, and Biomarkers of Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition in Colon and Breast Cancer Cells. Alcoholism Clinical and Experimental Research, 2009; DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-0277.2009.01061.x
Adapted from materials provided by Rush University Medical Center, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Tsunami may strike Israel

Tsunami Waves Reasonably Likely To Strike Israel, Geo-archaeological Research Suggests

 "There is a likely chance of tsunami waves reaching the shores of Israel," says Dr. Beverly Goodman of the Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences at the University of Haifa following an encompassing geo-archaeological study at the port of Caesarea. "Tsunami events in the Mediterranean do occur less frequently than in the Pacific Ocean, but our findings reveal a moderate rate of recurrence," she says.

Dr. Goodman, an expert geo-archaeologist, exposed geological evidence of this by chance. Her original intentions in Caesarea were to assist in research at the ancient port and at offshore shipwrecks.

"We expected to find the remains of ships, but were surprised to reveal unusual geological layers the likes of which we had never seen in the region before. We began underwater drilling assuming that these are simply local layers related to the construction of the port. However, we discovered that they are spread along the entire area and realized that we had found something major," she explains.

Geological drilling -- in areas of 1-3 meters in length and at various depths -- enabled Dr. Goodman to date the underwater layers using two methods: carbon-14 dating and OSL (optically stimulated luminescence). She found evidence of four tsunami events at Caesarea: in 1500 BC, 100-200 CE, 500-600 CE, and 1100-1200 CE.

In an article published by the Geological Society of America, Dr. Goodman explains that the earliest of these tsunamis resulted from the eruption of the Santorini volcano, which affected the entire Mediterranean region. The later, more local tsunami waves, Dr. Goodman assumes, were generated by underwater landslides caused by earthquakes. "'Local' does not necessarily imply 'small'. These could have been waves reaching 5 meters high and as far as 2 km onshore. Coastal communities within this range would have undoubtedly been severely damaged from such a tsunami. While communities onshore clear the ground after such an event and return to civilization, tsunami evidence is preserved under the water," she explains.

Journal reference:
Beverly N. Goodman-Tchernov, Hendrik W. Dey, Eduard G. Reinhardt, Floyd McCoy, and Yossi Mart. Tsunami waves generated by the Santorini eruption reached Eastern Mediterranean shores. Geology, 2009; 37 (10): 943 DOI: 10.1130/G25704A.1
Adapted from materials provided by University of Haifa.

Diverting Sediment-rich Water Below New Orleans Could Lead To Extensive New Land

As the Mississippi River enters the Gulf of Mexico, it deposits its load of sediment in a delta. View of the lower Mississippi River delta below New Orleans, with predictions for new land. (Credit: AGU/EOS)

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Diverting sediment-rich water from the Mississippi River below New Orleans could generate new land in the river's delta in the next century.

The land would equal almost half the acreage otherwise expected to disappear during that period, a new study shows.

For decades, sea-level rise, land subsidence, and a decrease in river sediment have caused vast swaths of the Mississippi Delta to vanish into the sea.

The anticipated build-up of new land in a portion of the delta, as simulated by a computer model, could compensate for a large fraction of the expected future loss, protect upriver areas from storm surges, and create fresh-water habitat, the researchers say.

"What this model shows is that we can, to a large degree, match future land loss by making these diversions," says David Mohrig, a geologist at the University of Texas (UT)-Austin who is also affiliated with the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics at the University of Minnesota.

He and Wonsuck Kim, also a geologist at UT-Austin, led the study. Its results are reported in today's issue of Eos, the weekly newspaper of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

"These authors present the possibility that through numerical modeling, coordinated with river channel diversions on the Mississippi Delta, we can begin to restore wetlands and build new land," says H. Richard Lane, program director in NSF's division of earth sciences, which funded the research.

The delta of the Mississippi River has been losing land to the sea at an average rate of about 44 square kilometers (17 square miles) per year since around 1940.

The natural equilibrium between soil loss and sediment deposition has been altered by the levees the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built below New Orleans to prevent the Mississippi from flooding.

The confined waters at the end of the river's course flow faster and drop their sediments over the continental platform, draining into the Gulf of Mexico.

History recorded in the river deposits shows that the main channel of the Mississippi moved roughly every 1,000 years to a new lowland area, Kim and Mohrig say. The engineering of the levees, they believe, has kept the river from entering lowland areas and depositing sedimentation.

The model looks at potential effects of an existing proposal to divert Mississippi River water through a pair of cuts made opposite each other in the levees 150 kilometers (93 miles) downstream from New Orleans.

Nearly half of the river's flow would spill out through the cuts, taking sediment with it and depositing it to each side of the river channel.

Despite sea level rise, increased land sinking rates, and a drop in the river's sediment supply, the diversions would create an amount of new land equal to up to 45 percent of the area that would otherwise be lost to the sea in the coming century, the model predicts.

Enough flow would remain in the main channel of the river to allow navigation there, the researchers report.

Other scientists studying coastal restoration had previously proposed creating these two diversions to allow water and sediment to exit the enclosed river, and build two lobes of new land in adjacent shallow-water sections of Breton Sound and Barataria Bay.

But critics say that dams in the upper sections of the Mississippi River have reduced the water's sediment content so much that there isn't enough raw material left to rebuild the delta. Also, detractors argue that future sea level rise and the current high sinking rate of the delta would make restoration impossible.

"Until we put together this model, there was a lot of debate that wasn't substantiated by anything but by intuition," says Mohrig. "We needed to move from having very soft impressions of what could be done to making predictions that can actually be tested."

The modelers used a conservative sediment supply rate, subsidence (sinking) rates from one to 10 millimeters per year, and rates of sea level rise that went from zero to four millimeters per year.

In their calculations, the authors considered diverting only 45 percent of the water to ensure that the section of the river below the diversions remained open to navigation.

The model predicts that the two diversions would create between 701 square kilometers (about 271 square miles) and 1,217 square kilometers (470 square miles) of new land over a century, partially offsetting land loss.

Kim and Mohrig calculate the engineered new delta lobes would make up for 25 to 45 percent of the area expected to vanish throughout the delta between now and 2110.

"Diversions are really the only cost-effective way of building land," Mohrig says.

The researchers verified their model by running a simulation of the evolution of another delta influenced by an existing diversion of the Mississippi River: the Old River Control Structures.

These structures divert water from the Mississippi to the Atchafalaya River, which also empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

The Atchafalaya River is currently building new land both in the Atchafalaya Delta and its subsidiary, the Wax Lake Delta. The model was able to accurately predict the amount of land that has been built since 1980.

Mohrig and Kim collaborated on the model with scientists from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Adapted from materials provided by National Science Foundation.

West Antarctic Ice Sheet May Not Be Losing Ice As Fast As Once Thought

The West Antarctic ice sheet rests on a bed well below sea level and is drained by much larger outlet glaciers and ice streams that accelerate over distances of hundreds of kilometers before reaching the ocean, often through large floating ice shelves. (Credit: NASA/LIMA)

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New ground measurements made by the West Antarctic GPS Network (WAGN) project, composed of researchers from The University of Texas at Austin, The Ohio State University, and The University of Memphis, suggest the rate of ice loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet has been slightly overestimated.

"Our work suggests that while West Antarctica is still losing significant amounts of ice, the loss appears to be slightly slower than some recent estimates," said Ian Dalziel, lead principal investigator for WAGN. "So the take home message is that Antarctica is contributing to rising sea levels. It is the rate that is unclear."

In 2006, another team of researchers used data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites to infer a significant loss of ice mass over West Antarctica from 2002 to 2005. The GRACE satellites do not measure changes in ice loss directly but measure changes in gravity, which can be caused both by ice loss and vertical uplift of the bedrock underlying the ice.

Now, for the first time, researchers have directly measured the vertical motion of the bedrock at sites across West Antarctica using the Global Positioning System (GPS). The results should lead to more accurate estimates of ice mass loss.

Antarctica was once buried under a deeper and more extensive layer of ice during a period known as the Last Glacial Maximum. Starting about 20,000 years ago, the ice began slowly thinning and retreating. As the ice mass decreases, the bedrock immediately below the ice rises, an uplift known as postglacial rebound.

Postglacial rebound causes an increase in the gravitational attraction measured by the GRACE satellites and could explain their inferred measurements of recent, rapid ice loss in West Antarctica. The new GPS measurements show West Antarctica is rebounding more slowly than once thought. This means that the correction to the gravity signal from the rock contribution has been overestimated and the rate of ice loss is slower than previously interpreted.

"The published results are very important because they provide precise, ground-truth GPS observations of the actual rebound of the continent due to the loss of ice mass detected by the GRACE satellite gravity measurements over West Antarctica" said Vladimir Papitashvili, acting director for the Antarctic Earth Sciences Program at the National Science Foundation, which supported the research.

WAGN researchers do not yet know how large the overestimation was. A more definitive correction will be conducted by other researchers who specialize in interpreting GRACE data. Previous estimates of postglacial rebound were made with theoretical models. Assimilation of the direct GPS results into new models will therefore produce significant improvements in estimations of ice mass loss.

The results will appear in the electronic journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems of the American Geophysical Union and the American Geochemical Society.

A team from The University of Texas at Austin's Jackson School of Geosciences (Ian Dalziel, lead principal investigator), The Ohio State University's School of Earth Sciences (Michael Bevis), and The University of Memphis' Center for Earthquake Research and Information (Robert Smalley, Jr.) performed the WAGN project.

The network consists of 18 GPS stations installed on bedrock outcrops across West Antarctica. Precise, millimeter level, three-dimensional locations of the stations, which are bolted into the bedrock, were determined during measurements made from 2001 to 2003 and from 2004 to 2006, the two measurements being at least three years apart. The difference in the positions during the two time periods indicates the motion of the bedrock.

The WAGN data were supplemented with data from the first year of the Polar Earth Observing Network (POLENET) project, a project to establish a more sophisticated, continuously recording network of GPS and seismic stations, including the already established WAGN sites. POLENET will further improve our understanding of the interaction between the solid earth and ice sheets at both poles. The lead principal investigator of the U.S. Antarctic contribution to POLENET is Terry Wilson of The Ohio State University.

The West Antarctic GPS Network and the U.S. Antarctic contribution to the Polar Earth Observing Network of the International Polar Year were both funded and logistically supported by the Office of Polar Programs of the National Science Foundation.

Journal reference:
Bevis et al. Geodetic measurements of vertical crustal velocity in West Antarctica and the implications for ice mass balance. Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems, 2009; 10 (10): Q10005 DOI: 10.1029/2009GC002642
Adapted from materials provided by University of Texas at Austin, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Global Warming May Spur Increased Growth In Pacific Northwest Forests

Mountain view at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon. Global warming in the next century could cause a significant increase in the productivity of high-elevation forests of the Pacific Northwest, a new study suggests. However, forests at lower elevations -- which in recent years have accounted for more than 80 percent of the region's timber harvest -- could face a decline in growth. (Credit: iStockphoto/Aimin Tang)

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Global warming in the next century could cause a significant increase in the productivity of high-elevation forests of the Pacific Northwest, a new study suggests. However, forests at lower elevations – which in recent years have accounted for more than 80 percent of the region’s timber harvest – could face a decline in growth.

The potential changes, which are based on the projections of computer models, would be most pronounced in Washington. In that state, high-elevation forests could see their productivity increase substantially, from 35 percent a year to as much as 500 percent, depending on which climate scenario is used.

In Oregon, similar elevations might see more modest forest growth increases of 9 to 75 percent.

Overall, forest productivity could increase about 7 percent annually in forests west of the Cascade Range and 20 percent in forests east of them, in conclusions based on one climate scenario that largely reflects current trends of energy use, globalization and economic growth. However, management practices, genetic limitations, and changes in natural disturbances such as disease, insects and fire were not included in the study, and can also affect productivity.

These findings analyzed changes in forest productivity further into the future than most previous work, and were just published in Forest Ecology and Management, a professional journal, by researchers from the College of Forestry at Oregon State University and the Pacific Northwest Research Station.

“There’s a lot of variability here, depending on which climate scenario turns out to be most accurate and what policy changes are made as a result,” said Darius Adams, a professor of forest economics at OSU. “And there are dramatic differences in forest regions and elevations. Clearly the forest growth is likely to increase the most at higher elevations, but it’s worth noting that those forests never had very high growth rates to start with.”

According to Greg Latta, an OSU faculty research assistant and principal investigator on the study, most of the climate scenarios that were used showed increases in temperatures – from one to eight degrees – but precipitation projections were all over the map, sometimes up and sometimes down. At lower elevations, tree growth is constrained when moisture is limited and drought stress is an issue.

“The lower-elevation forests are getting warmer just like those at higher elevations, but in most scenarios the precipitation doesn’t increase enough there to offset that,” Latta said. “The cumulative effect could be declines in forest growth of 1 to 3 percent a year in low-elevation Oregon forests, which could have a substantial long-term impact if trees are being managed for timber harvest.”

Among the findings of the study:
Any climate scenario that shows an increase in future temperatures could potentially lead to an overall increase in forest productivity in the Pacific Northwest, especially in Washington.
Increases in high-elevation forest productivity were partially offset by probable declines in lower-elevation forest productivity.
Private timber lands that have accounted for 83 percent of the timber harvest in this region over the past decade are concentrated at lower elevations.
The models showed that increases in forest growth at higher elevations could increase carbon sequestration for those areas, but they did not include potential changes in fire frequency and severity, which are also affected by biomass accumulation.
Other possible changes not reflected in the productivity projections were disturbance regimes such as diseases and insect outbreaks that are also affected by climate.
The combination of tree mortality and declining future growth on private timberlands could lead to concerns about lower harvest levels and reduced carbon sequestration in the future.
Responses to these projected future changes may depend largely on who owns the land, since private and public landowners often have different management objectives.

Forest productivity is important to consider for a range of issues, the researchers noted in their study, including potential timber harvest, habitat for wildlife, fuels that increase fire risk, carbon sequestration and other issues.

The study is also now being extended into Alaska, the researchers said.

“Water availability turned out to be an important factor for much of Oregon and Washington,” said Tara Barrett, a co-author and research scientist with the U.S. Forest Service. “We’re extending the project to coastal Alaska, where length of growing season is likely to be a more important factor than water availability, so it will be interesting to see if results are similar for that region.”

Forests and their potential growth may also play a significant role in future mitigation efforts to reduce greenhouse warming and the use of “carbon credits,” experts say.
Adapted from materials provided by Oregon State University.

Minimum Population Size Targets Too Low To Prevent Extinction?

Critically endangered Black rhino (Diceros bicornis): Habitat loss and illegal harvest have reduced once abundant populations to a worldwide total of under 2,500. Only sustained conservation effort will allow the continued survival of the species.

(Credit: iStockphoto/Alan Crawford)

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Conservation: Minimum Population Size Targets Too Low To Prevent Extinction?

Conservation biologists are setting their minimum population size targets too low to prevent extinction.

That's according to a new study by University of Adelaide and Macquarie University scientists which has shown that populations of endangered species are unlikely to persist in the face of global climate change and habitat loss unless they number around 5000 mature individuals or more.

The findings have been published online in the journal Biological Conservation.

"Conservation biologists routinely underestimate or ignore the number of animals or plants required to prevent extinction," says lead author Dr Lochran Traill, from the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute.

"Often, they aim to maintain tens or hundreds of individuals, when thousands are actually needed. Our review found that populations smaller than about 5000 had unacceptably high extinction rates. This suggests that many targets for conservation recovery are simply too small to do much good in the long run."

A long-standing idea in species restoration programs is the so-called '50/500' rule. This states that at least 50 adults are required to avoid the damaging effects of inbreeding, and 500 to avoid extinctions due to the inability to evolve to cope with environmental change.

"Our research suggests that the 50/500 rule is at least an order of magnitude too small to effectively stave off extinction," says Dr Traill. "This does not necessarily imply that populations smaller than 5000 are doomed. But it does highlight the challenge that small populations face in adapting to a rapidly changing world."

Team member Professor Richard Frankham, from Macquarie University's Department of Biological Sciences, says: "Genetic diversity within populations allows them to evolve to cope with environmental change, and genetic loss equates to fragility in the face of such changes."

Conservation biologists worldwide are battling to prevent a mass extinction event in the face of a growing human population and its associated impact on the planet.

"The conservation management bar needs to be a lot higher," says Dr Traill. "However, we shouldn't necessarily give up on critically endangered species numbering a few hundred of individuals in the wild. Acceptance that more needs to be done if we are to stop 'managing for extinction' should force decision makers to be more explicit about what they are aiming for, and what they are willing to trade off, when allocating conservation funds."

Journal reference:
Traill et al. Pragmatic population viability targets in a rapidly changing world. Biological Conservation, 2009; DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2009.09.001
Adapted from materials provided by University of Adelaide.

Killer Algae: Key Player In Mass Extinctions

Pond covered with algae. (Credit: iStockphoto)

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Supervolcanoes and cosmic impacts get all the terrible glory for causing mass extinctions, but a new theory suggests lowly algae may be the killer behind the world's great species annihilations.

Today, just about anywhere there is water, there can be toxic algae. The microscopic plants usually exist in small concentrations, but a sudden warming in the water or an injection of dust or sediment from land can trigger a bloom that kills thousands of fish, poisons shellfish, or even humans.

James Castle and John Rodgers of Clemson University think the same thing happened during the five largest mass extinctions in Earth's history. Each time a large die off occurred, they found a spike in the number of fossil algae mats called stromatolites strewn around the planet. Castle will be presenting the research on October 19 at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Portland, Oregon.

"If you go through theories of mass extinctions, there are always some unanswered questions," Castle said. "For example, an impact – how does that cause species to go extinct? Is it climate change, dust in the atmosphere? It's probably not going to kill off all these species on its own."

But as the nutrient-rich fallout from the disaster lands in the water, it becomes food for algae. They explode in population, releasing chemicals that can act as anything from skin irritants to potent neurotoxins. Plants on land can pick up the compounds in their roots, and pass them on to herbivorous animals.

If the theory is right, it answers a lot of questions about how species died off in the ancient world. It also raises concerns for how today's algae may damage the ecosystem in a warmer world.

"Algae growth is favored by warmer temperatures," Castle said. "You get accelerated metabolism and reproduction of these organisms, and the effect appears to be enhanced for species of toxin-producing cyanobacteria."

He added that toxic algae in the United States appear to be migrating slowly northward through the country's ponds and lakes, and along the coast as temperatures creep upward. Their expanding range portends a host of problems for fish and wildlife, but also for humans, as algae increasingly invade reservoirs and other sources of drinking water.

Journal reference:
Castle et al. Hypothesis for the role of toxin-producing algae in Phanerozoic mass extinctions based on evidence from the geologic record and modern environments. Environmental Geosciences, 2009; 16 (1): 1 DOI: 10.1306/eg.08110808003
Adapted from materials provided by Geological Society of America, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Are Humans Still Evolving?

Data collected as part of a 60-year study suggests that humans are likely to evolve at roughly the same rates as other living things. (Credit: iStockphoto)

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Are Humans Still Evolving? Absolutely, Says A New Analysis Of A Long-term Survey Of Human Health

Although advances in medical care have improved standards of living over time, humans aren't entirely sheltered from the forces of natural selection, a new study shows.

"There is this idea that because medicine has been so good at reducing mortality rates, that means that natural selection is no longer operating in humans," said Stephen Stearns of Yale University.

A recent analysis by Stearns and colleagues turns this idea on its head. As part of a working group sponsored by the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, NC, the team of researchers decided to find out if natural selection — a major driving force of evolution — is still at work in humans today. The result? Human evolution hasn't ground to a halt. In fact, we're likely to evolve at roughly the same rates as other living things, findings suggest.

Taking advantage of data collected as part of a 60-year study of more than 2000 North American women in the Framingham Heart Study, the researchers analyzed a handful of traits important to human health. By measuring the effects of these traits on the number of children the women had over their lifetime, the researchers were able to estimate the strength of selection and make short-term predictions about how each trait might evolve in the future. After adjusting for factors such as education and smoking, their models predict that the descendents of these women will be slightly shorter and heavier, will have lower blood pressure and cholesterol, will have their first child at a younger age, and will reach menopause later in life.

"The take-home message is that humans are currently evolving," said Stearns. "Natural selection is still operating."

The changes may be slow and gradual, but the predicted rates of change are no different from those observed elsewhere in nature, the researchers say. "The evolution that's going on in the Framingham women is like average rates of evolution measured in other plants and animals," said Stearns. "These results place humans in the medium-to-slow end of the range of rates observed for other living things," he added. "But what that means is that humans aren't special with respect to how fast they're evolving. They're kind of average."

Additional authors on the study were Sean Byars of Yale University, Douglas Ewbank of the University of Pennsylvania, and Diddahally Govindaraju of Boston University.

The team's findings were published online in the October 19th issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) is an NSF-funded collaborative research center operated by Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and North Carolina State University.

Journal reference:
Byars, S., D. Ewbank, et al. Natural selection in a contemporary human population. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(42) DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0906199106
Adapted from materials provided by National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Hyderabad now boasts of India's longest flyover!

India's longest flyover with a length of 11.66 km was dedicated to the nation by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister K Rosaiah amid controversy over its naming after former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao with a Congress ally and powerful political group Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen boycotting the inaugural function.

Holding Rao responsible for the demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya during his prime ministership, the MIM demanded that it should be named after Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, the man behind the project.

With thousands of Congress party worker thronging the venue of the inauguration near Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital in Mehdipatnam area, the starting point of the flyover, confusion and chaos prevailed as Rosaiah unveiled the plaque marking the opening of the PVNR Elevated Express linking one of the busiest areas of Hyderabad to the National Highway No 7, making it easy for the International Airport bound passengers to travel.

The flyover was built over a period of about three years at a cost of Rs 600 crore (Rs 6 billion), using the latest technology of prefabricated segment and overhead grid launcher, causing minimal disruption to the traffic along the route.

The flyover has 328 piers built over the median of the Inner Ring Road and 3500 block segments built using the pre-cast technology off site and brought to the site using heavy cranes and erected using the overhead launcher.

"This is the first time that this technology has been used in India for building a fly over and now other cities have also started using it," Deshmukh said.

The other long flyovers in the country are the ones at Panipat (10-km long) and Bangalore (less than 9 kms long).

At present a user, who gets on to the flyover, will have to cover the entire stretch of 11.6 kms because the ramps allowing it to exit midway are not ready. "The work is on the three intermediate ramps and they will take some more time."

To ensure a minimum speed of 60 kms per hour, authorities have decided to allow only cars and buses to use the flyoer. "Two wheelers, three wheelers and commercial carriers will not be allowed on to it to prevent accidents," said the municipal administration minister A Narayan Reddy. There will be no toll gate charges at present, he added.

Meanwhile several auto rickshaw unions held demonstrations against the decision of not allowing the three wheelers to the flyover. "This is an attempt to promote taxi services at the cost of auto rickshaws," said Amanullah Khan, an autorickshaw union leader.

How to fine tune your car insurance

Sunil Dhawan

Much attention is paid to which car to buy. But, its insurance gets neglected. The idea is not to get just some insurance but a comprehensive one that leaves you free of worry. Here's how you can fine tune your car insurance.

First gear. Insurance is often provided free for the first year for a new car.

Car insurance has two components - own damage (when your vehicle is damaged in an accident) and third-party liability (when damage occurs to the other person's life and vehicle). Anyone other than the insurer and the insured is third-party. Third-party liability insurance is compulsory.

The sum insured of a vehicle in a motor policy is referred to as the insured's declared value. In case of theft or total damage, the claim amount payable is based on the IDV. The IDV is fixed on the basis of the car's price less the depreciation of the brand and model. This value is adjusted for depreciation.

The choice. You can decide how much the IDV will be. The sum insured depends on the market value of a vehicle. Avoid being over- or under-insured as the claim will be paid on the basis on the market value and what was insured.

Even if the IDV remains the same, the premium can differ across insurers. Of course, the lower the premium, the cheaper is the cover. But, don't let premium be the only deciding factor.

Fortify your policy

Someone else driving your car. You can easily insure your driver against personal accidents by paying a small additional premium of Rs 25. Ensure that he or anyone else driving your car has a valid licence. Else the claim will be rejected.

Personal accident cover. Other than for yourself, get personal accident cover (limited to Rs 200,000) for other passengers as well.

No-claim bonus. While switching insurers, the NCB can be transferred to the new policy. NCB is a reward given to the owner of a vehicle and is not attached with the vehicle. So, if you sell your car and buy a new one, you can transfer the NCB to the new one. The car buyer, however, will not get the NCB benefit when he renews the policy.

Discounts. Some insurers now offer discounts based on the age of the insured. In HDFC Ergo General Insurance, for instance, there is a 5 per cent discount on the 'own-damage' portion of the policy for those in the 36-45 years age group and 10 per cent to those over 46 years. There are profession-based discounts also.

Further, you can get a discount of 5 per cent (maximum of Rs 200) if you are a member of an approved automobile association, and 2.5 per cent (maximum of Rs 500) if you have installed an approved anti-theft device.

Garage tie-ups. Check to see the number of garages the company has tied up with for cashless transactions.

If you enjoy tinkering with your car's engine and modifying the power or performance, disclose this information to the insurance company. Failure to provide material facts about the car, including previous accidents, can lead to claim rejection.

Extra layer

You can attach several add-ons to the basic policy by paying extra premium. Cholamandalam MS General Insurance's Chola Protect 360 offers features like nil depreciation, reinstatement value in case of total loss, daily allowance while the car is under repair and cover for loss of personal belongings, car keys and driving licence.

IFFCO TOKIO General Insurance has 'On Road Protector' feature as an add-on. If your vehicle stops due to an accident or a breakdown, you can call for roadside assistance.

Tata AIG General Insurance is set to offer 'Depreciation Reimbursement' add-on in which full claim on the value of parts replaced is given without any deduction.

Unlike the existing model, where the IDV is paid for total loss or theft, the 'Return to invoice' add-on offers to pay the shortfall between the amount you get and the original value of the car or the current replacement price of a new car if the exact make/model is available, whichever is less. The No-Claim Bonus Protection add-on gives you the bonus even if there is a claim.

On the safer side

Other than the basic cover that car insurance policies provide, tick against these options to enhance the coverage:
Insure your driver against personal accidents. It costs only Rs 25
Other than personal accident cover for yourself, get it for other passengers also (limit: Rs 2 lakh)
Check for number of garages the insurer has tie-ups with for cashless servicing
If you like to tinker with your car, make sure inform the insurer of this
Ask if there are any age-based discounts on offer. With HDFC Ergo General Insurance, for example, if the insured is aged 36-45 years, he can get 5 per cent discount on 'own damage' part of the policy and 10 per cent if age is above 46 years.
Also check for profession-based discounts
While switching to another insurer, retain the no-claim bonus. This is also applicable if you have sold a car and bought a new one
Benefit of towing charges is also available

Before you buy a policy

Bargain. If you are buying directly from the insurer, bargain for the best price. Typically, they have a margin of 5 per cent.

Search. Go to different brokers before buying a policy. Brokers have tie-ups with a number of insurers while an agent represents just one insurer. Large broking houses have attractive deals with the insurers. Also, since they represent the clients' interest, they come in handy at the time of a claim.

Don't let discounts weaken your cover. Always ask what covers you are getting. A comprehensive policy covers theft or damage to your car, third-party liability as well as the passengers in the car. The cost of covering the passengers and a paid driver comes to around Rs 250 and is optional. But, don't ignore this cover for a discount, especially as the cost is low.

Get full cover. Get insurance on a full IDV as this is the amount that the insurer would pay if your car got completely damaged or stolen. Higher discounts might mean a lower IDV. So, ask for the exact IDV to get a real idea of the insurance amount.

Pay from your pocket. Look at the co-payment clause. Also known as 'excess' in the policy. This clause makes you bear a portion of a claim. A higher excess would mean a lower premium since you shift some of the risk from the insurer on to yourself.

So, if you agreed on a voluntary deductible of Rs 2,500 and there is a claim for Rs 7,500, the insurer will pay Rs 5,000. Though you cannot take a deductible above Rs 15,000, the option still makes sense. But, if you can't afford to pay a higher portion of the claim then don't bump up your excess. Check with the agent to see if the discount in the premium means a higher excess for you.

He can produce electricity using air power

In an era where non-conventional methods of power generation like wind and solar energy have gained popularity, a city-based entrepreneur has hit upon a unique idea of producing electricity through air power technology using 'air pressure' created along railway tracks.

Santosh Pradhan, 38, who runs a bunch of engineering and mechanical units and has almost two decades of experience in manufacturing engineering tools, has registered 20 patents with the government of India about his technology.

"When a train runs at a full speed of 110-120 km, it creates an air pressure in opposite direction and no one has ever thought to utilise this huge air pressure which is freely and easily available," Pradhan told PTI.

As per his technology, a small impeller is fixed at the front portion of railway locomotive and similarly on top of each coach of a train.

"When the train is running, it will produce huge quantity of compressed air due to high velocity of the wind and by accumulating this compressed air in big fabricated tanks on either side of the track, we can run turbines or air turbine motors which can produce a considerable amount of electricity," he explained.

Keeping his cards close to the chest, Pradhan has now approached the higher railways authorities to seek permission for prototype and a subsequent demonstration of this technology which he says is 'eco-friendly and cost effective'.

However, he is yet to get a green signal but 20 of his patents have been registered so that he remains the sole person to further develop this technology.

Pradhan said about 14,300 trains were running on 63,028 route kms in the country and about 20.89 MW electricity can be generated per km with the use of air power technology.

Thus approximately 14,81,134 MW of power can be generated by using the entire railway track if one goes by his data, statistics and calculations.

According to him, the Indian Railways was spending 17 per cent revenue on the fuel head which is roughly Rs 15,000 crore (Rs 150 billion) per annum.

When adopted even in phases, it would start reducing the cost of fuel for Indian Railways, he said.

However, it all depends on the Indian Railways to allow additional fabrication of parallel wind pipes over the over head electric lines to pass on high velocity wind to reach tanks on either of side of track, Pradhan said.

Also, the technology, Pradhan claims, can save 2,586 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emission in the country.

Getting caught in the 'web' of love

Technology may just get you love, or so it seems according to a new report from internet security firm Symantec which reveals that more than a third of adults have used the web to flirt. The 45 million active internet users in India have been steadily using the web to socialise with people.

"Nearly 83 per cent Indians have an online friend. Netizens are fast opening up to newer technologies such as instant messaging, social networking and texting that are being used to strengthen relationships to keep kids, parents and grandparents connected," David Freer, vice- president (consumer business -- APAC & Japan), Symantec, told Business Standard.

Around 37 per cent Indians have rekindled romantic relationships. Males tend to have more online friends than females do. Seventy per cent internet users in India even use webcams and visit social networking sites.

Freer, however, cautions those looking for easy relationships over the web, "The internet can be a great place to find romance, but don't forget the basics of safety and security apply to the virtual world as much as to the physical world.

'Pak army needs Taliban assets to counter India'

The Pakistan military believes that American and British military will withdraw from Afghanistan -- and when they do, they will need old Taliban friends such as Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin to minimise the influence of India in its Afghan backyard.


Several key Taliban figures are protected by the Pakistan army [ Images ], which still regards them as 'strategic assets'.

These 'assets' continue to organise attacks on North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's forces from Waziristan, unmolested or unchallenged by the Pakistan army, reports The Telegraph.

It is for this reason that Islamabad has turned a blind eye to the presence of Mullah Omar's Quetta Shura, the ruling council that coordinates the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. from a hide-out close to the Balochistan state capital.

Although Pakistan's military chiefs have been talking about an 'imminent' assault since last June, all the evidence has pointed to deep reluctance to launch a massive ground offensive, which will provoke an overwhelming backlash with suicide bombings and fidayeen commando attacks throughout the country.

It was the Taliban's new leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, who finally forced a decision upon the army, when his militants launched a daring commando raid into the army's headquarters in Rawalpindi.

Just ten fidayeen gunmen shot their way into the garrison headquarter, seized 42 hostages, and killed 14 soldiers and civilians in a 22-hour siege.

The real humiliation for the army is that most of these raids were shown, shot by shot, on live television news channels. Hakimullah's challenge could not have been more forceful or more public.

Hakimullah's onslaught questioned the military's invincibility, and Pakistan army chief General Ashfaq Kiyani, could not let that challenge pass.

Al-Qaeda suicide bombers carrying explosives in stomach

The Al-Qaeda  has developed new explosive devices that enable suicide bombers carry them hidden in stomach to breach airline security measures, the media reported on Sunday. An al-Qaeda militant passed through several airline security checks with a bomb hidden in his intestine and made an abortive bid to assassinate a prominent Saudi prince, The Sunday Telegraph reported. 

"While not wanting to be alarmist, I admit this is alarming," Richard Barrett, head of the United Nations" al-Qaeda and Taliban [ Images ] monitoring group was quoted as saying. "Even though its capability is reduced, it is clear that al-Qaeda remains determined enough and inventive enough to cause another terrorist spectacular." Addressing the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Barrett said the organisation's power to sow terror was far from eliminated, and described how its use of a well-known drug smugglers' technique had already breached airline security.

The episode occurred on August 28, when, Abdullah Hassan Tali al-Asiri, one of Saudi Arabia's most wanted men, offered to give himself up to Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef, the head of Saudi Arabia's counter terrorism operations. The prince is responsible for overseeing Saudi Arabia's much trumpeted terrorist rehabilitation programme. The repentant al-Asiri took two flights, one aboard the prince's private jet. He spent 30 hours closely guarded by the prince's personal security.

Over 40 million use fake anti-virus software

Have you installed any downloaded anti-virus software on your computer? Check it out, it could be a fake one as cyber security experts have warned that over 40 million users worldwide have been tricked to buy such malicious software.

According to security experts at Symantec, web users generally get lured by cyber criminals to download and install fake anti-virus software on to their machines, believing they're protecting their PCs from hackers.

But actually, the criminals, who earn more than 750,000 pounds a year from the business, provide themselves a "back door" access into the machines via the software, The Telegraph reported.

Once the malicious software was installed, it forces users to unwittingly share their credit card and other financial details with fraudsters, said experts at the California-based software firm.

They have identified more than 250 versions of this software, called as 'scareware', and estimate that around 40 million people worldwide have fallen victim to these scams last year.

To intimidate and trick web users in to buying such software, Symantec said, the vendors go to great lengths.

They use pop-up adverts, which look similar as the alert messages from known and reputed anti-virus companies, to lull the users into a false sense of security. Such messages warn users that their computer has been compromised and is at risk unless they immediately install tools to protect it.

"Lots of times, in fact they're a conduit for attackers to take over your machine," said Vincent Weafer, Symantec's vice president for security response.

"They'll take your credit card information, any personal information you've entered there and they've got your machine," he said.

Hackers with always-on remote access to a machine could use that connection to harvest details of bank logins or other security codes, or even pull the computer into a giant 'botnet', a network of compromised machines that send out spam messages, or help to propagate the spread of viruses, unbeknown to the computer user, Weafer said.

"In terms of the number of people who potentially have this in their machines, it's tens of millions," he said.

Security experts also warned computer users not to buy anti-virus or security software from unsolicited pop-up adverts.

It is always better to buy those software directly from authorised company shops or from their official websites, they advised.

Smart Rat 'Hobbie-J' Produced

Smart Rat 'Hobbie-J' Produced By Over-expressing A Gene That Helps Brain Cells Communicate

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Smart rat Hobbie-J was named after a character in a Chinese cartoon book.

(Credit: Medical College of Georgia)

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Over-expressing a gene that lets brain cells communicate just a fraction of a second longer makes a smarter rat, report researchers from the Medical College of Georgia and East China Normal University.

Dubbed Hobbie-J after a smart rat that stars in a Chinese cartoon book, the transgenic rat was able to remember novel objects, such as a toy she played with, three times longer than the average Long Evans female rat, which is considered the smartest rat strain. Hobbie-J was much better at more complex tasks as well, such as remembering which path she last traveled to find a chocolate treat.

The report comes about a decade after the scientists first reported in the journal Nature that they had developed "Doogie," a smart mouse that over-expresses the NR2B gene in the hippocampus, a learning and memory center affected in diseases such as Alzheimer's. Memory improvements they found in the new genetically modified Long Evans rat were very similar to Doogie's. Subsequent testing has shown that Doogie maintained superior memory as he aged.

"This adds to the notion that NR2B is a universal switch for memory formation," says Dr. Joe Z. Tsien, co-director of the MCG Brain & Behavior Discovery Institute and co-corresponding author on the paper published Oct. 19 in PLoS One. Dr. Xiaohua Cao at East China Normal University also is a co-corresponding author.

The finding also further validates NR2B as a drug target for improving memory in healthy individuals as well as those struggling with Alzheimer's or mild dementia, the scientists says.

NR2B is a subunit of NMBA receptors, which are like small pores on brain cells that let in electrically-charged ions that increase the activity and communication of neurons. Dr. Tsien refers to NR2B as the "juvenile" form of the receptor because its levels decline after puberty and the adult counterpart, NR2A, becomes more prevalent.

While the juvenile form keeps communication between brain cells open maybe just a hundred milliseconds longer, that's enough to significantly enhance learning and memory and why young people tend to do both better, says Dr. Tsien, the Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Cognitive and Systems Neurobiology. This trap door configuration that determines not just how much but how fast information flows is unique to NMBA receptors.

Scientists found that Hobbie-J consistently outperformed the normal Long Evans rat even in more complex situations that require association, such as working their way through a water maze after most of the designated directional cues and the landing point were removed. "It's like taking Michael Jordan and making him a super Michael Jordan," Deheng Wang, MCG graduate student and the paper's first author, says of the large black and white rats already recognized for their superior intellect.

But even a super rat has its limits. For example with one test, the rats had to learn to alternate between right and left paths to get a chocolate reward. Both did well when they only had to wait a minute to repeat the task, after three minutes only Hobbie-J could remember and after five minutes, they both forgot. "We can never turn it into a mathematician. They are rats, after all," Dr. Tsien says, noting that when it comes to truly complex thinking and memory, the size of the brain really does matter.

That's one of the reasons scientists pursue this type of research: to see if increased production of NR2B in more complex creatures, such as dogs and perhaps eventually humans, gets the same results. He also is beginning studies to explore whether magnesium – a mineral found in nuts, legumes and green vegetables such as spinach – can more naturally replicate the results researchers have obtained through genetic manipulation. Magnesium ion blocks entry to the NMDA receptor so more magnesium forces the brain cell to increase expression levels of the more efficient NR2B to compensate. This is similar to how statin drugs help reduce cholesterol levels in the blood by inhibiting its synthesis in the liver.

Scientists created Hobbie-J and Doogie by making them over-express CaMKII, an abundant protein that works as a promoter and signaling molecule for the NMDA receptor, something that likely could not be replicated in humans. In October 2008, they reported in Neuron that they could also safely and selectively erase old and new memories alike in mice by over-expressing CaMKII while the memory was being recalled

"We want to make sure this is a real phenomenon," Dr. Tsien says of the apparent connection between higher levels of NR2B and better memory. "You should never assume that discovery you made in a cell line or a mouse can be translated to other species or systems unless you do the experiments." He adds that the failure of new drugs and other disappointments result from the lack of sufficient scientific evidence.

The transgenic rat has other practical value as well. There is substantial scientific and behavior data already available on rats and because rats are larger, it's easier to do memory tests and record signals from their brain. For example they are strong enough to press levers to get a food reward and their size and comfort level with water means they won't just float aimlessly in a water maze as "fluffy" mice tend to do.

Journal reference:
Wang et al. Genetic Enhancement of Memory and Long-Term Potentiation but Not CA1 Long-Term Depression in NR2B Transgenic Rats. PLoS ONE, 2009; 4 (10): e7486 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007486
Adapted from materials provided by Medical College of Georgia, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Friendy bacteria help immune system

In Shaping Our Immune Systems, Some 'Friendly' Bacteria May Play Inordinate Role

Out of the trillions of "friendly" bacteria -- representing hundreds of species -- that make our intestines their home, new evidence in mice suggests that it may be a very select few that shape our immune responses. The findings detailed in two October 16th reports appearing in the journals Cell and Immunity, both Cell Press publications, offer new insight into the constant dialogue that goes on between intestinal microbes and the immune system, and point to a remarkably big role for a class of microbes known as segmented filamentous bacteria (SFB).

"It's the first example of a commensal bacteria that can induce accumulation in the gut of a highly specific branch of the immune system," said Dan Littman of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the New York University School of Medicine, who led the study reported in Cell. "We're headed into an exciting new area, and we hope more pieces of how the microbial-host interaction contributes to health will begin to fall into place."

"Our study provides the surprising result that among the hundreds of bacterial species composing the gut microbiota -- only a very small number, the prototype of which is SFB -- can efficiently stimulate the post-natal physiologic maturation of the immune barrier," added Valérie Gaboriau-Routhiau of INSERM in France, who led the Immunity report. "A unique feature of SFB appears to be its capacity to simultaneously stimulate a large spectrum of intestinal immune responses -- innate and adaptive, pro-inflammatory and regulatory -- which complete and balance each other."

Notably, those SFBs stimulate particular types of helper T cells, known as Th17 cells, the studies show.

In Littman's case, the findings by his group were something of an accidental discovery. They were studying T cells in the intestine and were getting some inconsistencies in their results. Those inconsistencies could be traced to differences in the gut floras of mice obtained from different sources, and specifically, they found, in the presence or absence of SFB.

Introduction of SFB, but not other bacteria, stimulated the production of Th17 cells in mice who were otherwise deficient in them, they show. The bacteria also set in motion a pro-inflammatory gene program. That SFB-induced immune response protected the mice from becoming ill with an intestinal pathogen, supporting a role for the SFBs in setting up the intestine's immunity barrier.

Gaboriau-Routhiau similarly found in studies of conventional and germ-free mice that colonization of the gut induced a broad spectrum of pro-inflammatory and T cell responses, including the emergence of Th17 cells. That occurred despite the fact that most bacteria, in combination or on their own, didn't lead to such a reaction. Rather, that function appeared limited to a restricted number of bacteria, her team reports, the prototype of which is the SFB. All on its own, SFB could largely recapitulate the coordinated maturation of T cell responses normally induced by the whole mouse microbiota.

Gaboriau-Routhiau suspects that SFBs may have some special attributes that explain their importance.

"For us, it was first a surprise to observe so little redundancy in the role of commensal bacteria on stimulating immune responses," Gaboriau-Routhiau said. "One striking feature of SFB, which makes it very different from the vast majority of the members of the microbiota, is its capacity to adhere to epithelial cells notably in the ileum, a property normally more the prerogative of pathogens." The ileum is the final section of the small intestine and is distinguished by many folds, giving it a very substantial surface area.

The findings also suggest how such commensal bacteria might sometimes go from beneficial inhabitants, helping to fend off nasty bugs, to ones that may tip the balance of the immune system toward the development of inflammatory, autoimmune disease, such as Crohn's disease, psoriasis and even arthritis, according to the researchers. Indeed, the Th17 cells observed in the new studies have been noted in recent years because of their importance in autoimmune diseases, Littman explained. Animals with defects in those Th17 cells generally don't develop autoimmune disease or develop disease that is less severe, earlier studies showed.

"Th17 cells make cytokines that can be highly protective in the case of infection," he said. "At the same time, in the wrong context or in the wrong amount [they can lead to disease]. You need to have the right balance."

Given the bacterial diversity found within our guts, the new results show how much there still is to learn about this important aspect of the immune system. While probiotic products on the market today don't have the benefit of such a thorough understanding, says Littman, there is little doubt that down the road we may be able to manipulate our immune system in beneficial ways with microbes. Alternatively, he said, some of the molecular products of those bacteria – particular sugars or peptides, for instance – might ultimately serve as useful therapies on their own.

Cell article:

The researchers include Ivaylo I. Ivanov, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY; Koji Atarashi, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan, Nicolas Manel, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY; Eoin L. Brodie, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, Tatsuichiro Shima, Yakult Central Institute for Microbiological Research, Kunitachi, Tokyo, Japan, Ulas Karaoz, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA; Dongguang Wei, Carl Zeiss SMT, Inc., Nanotechnology Systems Division, Peabody, MA; Katherine C. Goldfarb, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA; Clark A. Santee, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA; Susan V. Lynch, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA; Takeshi Tanoue, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan; Akemi Imaoka, Yakult Central Institute for Microbiological Research, Kunitachi, Tokyo, Japan; Kikuji Itoh, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan; Kiyoshi Takeda, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan; Yoshinori Umesaki, Yakult Central Institute for Microbiological Research, Kunitachi, Tokyo, Japan; Kenya Honda, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Saitama, Japan; and Dan R. Littman, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Immunity article:

The researchers include Valérie Gaboriau-Routhiau, INRA, U910, Unité Ecologie et Physiologie du Système Digestif, Domaine de Vilvert, Jouy-en-Josas, France, INSERM, Université Paris, Paris, France; Sabine Rakotobe, INRA, U910, Unité Ecologie et Physiologie du Système Digestif, Domaine de Vilvert, Jouy-en-Josas, France, INSERM, Université Paris, Paris, France; Emelyne Lécuyer, INRA, U910, Unité Ecologie et Physiologie du Système Digestif, Domaine de Vilvert, Jouy-en-Josas, France, INSERM, Université Paris, Paris, France; Imke Mulder, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK; Annaïg Lan, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK; Chantal Bridonneau, INRA, U910, Unité Ecologie et Physiologie du Système Digestif, Domaine de Vilvert, Jouy-en-Josas, France; Violaine Rochet, INRA, U910, Unité Ecologie et Physiologie du Système Digestif, Domaine de Vilvert, Jouy-en-Josas, France; Annamaria Pisi, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy; Marianne De Paepe, INSERM, Université Paris, Paris, France; Giovanni Brandi, Gérard Eberl, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy; Johannes Snel, NIZO Food Research, The Netherlands; Denise Kelly, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK; and Nadine Cerf-Bensussan, INSERM, Université Paris, Paris, France.
Adapted from materials provided by Cell Press, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.