In Brief
Jun 30, 2003
<b>Self-cooling shirt due ...<br>Euros used to detect cocaine ...<br>DDT affects female fertility ...<br>Possible HIV vaccine lead ...</b>
Self-cooling shirt due
Naples — Scientists in Italy are using space-age technology to develop a new type of shirt that keeps the body’s temperature constant, thereby providing a very welcome “refreshing†feel during the hot summer months.
The research is headed by Naples-based Professor Cosimo Carfagna of the Italian National Research Council. Professor Carfagna is using so-called phase change Materials, first developed by NASA to insulate delicate electronic components in satellites from the extreme variations in temperature.
Euros used to detect cocaine
Nuremberg —Euro bank notes help reveal the habits of cocaine users in the European Union, with Spain the country where most traces of the drug are detected on bills, according to a German study released this week.
Researchers at the Nuremberg pharmaceutical and biomedical research institute found an average 335 microgrammes of cocaine on euro notes printed in Spain, far highter than other EU member states.
DDT affects female fertility
Paris — DDT, a widely outlawed pesticide, still in use in some poor countries, seriously delayed the chances of pregnancy among daughters of women who were exposed to the chemical three decades previously, a study says.
Researchers found that the probability of getting pregnant plummeted among young women in the US whose mothers had been exposed to background levels of DDT between 1960 and 1963, when the chemical was in its heyday.
Possible HIV vaccine lead
Washington — Scientists have unraveled the structure of an antibody that effectively neutralises the HIV virus, the key to a possible vaccine against AIDS, according to a report released Thursday:
“What we found was an unusual configuration of the antibody in which its two Fab domains, the antigen recognition units, are ‘interdigitating’ with each other,†Scripps Research Institute Professor Ian Wilson wrote in the latest issue of the journal Science.
“Nothing like this has ever been seen before,†said Wilson, one of the two Scripps professors who led the research.
Naples — Scientists in Italy are using space-age technology to develop a new type of shirt that keeps the body’s temperature constant, thereby providing a very welcome “refreshing†feel during the hot summer months.
The research is headed by Naples-based Professor Cosimo Carfagna of the Italian National Research Council. Professor Carfagna is using so-called phase change Materials, first developed by NASA to insulate delicate electronic components in satellites from the extreme variations in temperature.
Euros used to detect cocaine
Nuremberg —Euro bank notes help reveal the habits of cocaine users in the European Union, with Spain the country where most traces of the drug are detected on bills, according to a German study released this week.
Researchers at the Nuremberg pharmaceutical and biomedical research institute found an average 335 microgrammes of cocaine on euro notes printed in Spain, far highter than other EU member states.
DDT affects female fertility
Paris — DDT, a widely outlawed pesticide, still in use in some poor countries, seriously delayed the chances of pregnancy among daughters of women who were exposed to the chemical three decades previously, a study says.
Researchers found that the probability of getting pregnant plummeted among young women in the US whose mothers had been exposed to background levels of DDT between 1960 and 1963, when the chemical was in its heyday.
Possible HIV vaccine lead
Washington — Scientists have unraveled the structure of an antibody that effectively neutralises the HIV virus, the key to a possible vaccine against AIDS, according to a report released Thursday:
“What we found was an unusual configuration of the antibody in which its two Fab domains, the antigen recognition units, are ‘interdigitating’ with each other,†Scripps Research Institute Professor Ian Wilson wrote in the latest issue of the journal Science.
“Nothing like this has ever been seen before,†said Wilson, one of the two Scripps professors who led the research.