science newsletter: Science News SciGuru.com

Σάββατο 22 Ιουνίου 2013

Science News SciGuru.com

Beyond Silicon: Transistors without Semiconductors
How cancer cells avoid cell death
Pluripotent Stem Cells Made From Pancreatic Cancer Cells Are First Human Model of the Cancer's Progression
Airborne gut action primes wild chili pepper seeds
Chlamydia promotes gene mutations that could cause cancer

Beyond Silicon: Transistors without Semiconductors

Posted: 21 Jun 2013 01:07 PM PDT

For decades, electronic devices have been getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller. It’s now possible—even routine—to place millions of transistors on a single silicon chip.

But transistors based on semiconductors can only get so small. “At the rate the current technology is progressing, in 10 or 20 years, they won’t be able to get any smaller,” said physicist Yoke Khin Yap of Michigan Technological University. “Also, semiconductors have another disadvantage: they waste a lot of energy in the form of heat.”

How cancer cells avoid cell death

Posted: 21 Jun 2013 12:50 PM PDT

A new study by a team of researchers from the University of Notre Dame provides an important new insight into how cancer cells are able to avoid the cell death process. The findings may reveal a novel chemotherapeutic approach to prevent the spread of cancers.

Pluripotent Stem Cells Made From Pancreatic Cancer Cells Are First Human Model of the Cancer's Progression

Posted: 21 Jun 2013 11:32 AM PDT

Pancreatic cancer carries a dismal prognosis. According to the National Cancer Institute, the overall five-year relative survival for 2003-2009 was 6 percent.

Still, researchers and clinicians don’t have a non-invasive way to even detect early cells that portent later disease. ‘There’s no PSA test for pancreatic cancer,’ they say, and that’s one of the main reasons why pancreatic cancer is detected so late in its course.

Airborne gut action primes wild chili pepper seeds

Posted: 21 Jun 2013 10:36 AM PDT

Scientists have long known that seeds gobbled by birds and dispersed across the landscape tend to fare better than those that fall near parent plants where seed-hungry predators and pathogens are more concentrated.

Now it turns out it might not just be the trip through the air that’s important, but also the inches-long trip through the bird.

Chlamydia promotes gene mutations that could cause cancer

Posted: 21 Jun 2013 10:23 AM PDT

Chlamydia trachomatis is a human pathogen that is the leading cause of bacterial sexually transmitted disease worldwide with more than 90 million new cases of genital infections occurring each year. About 70 percent of women infected with Chlamydia remain asymptomatic and these bacteria can establish chronic infections for months, or even years. Even when it causes no symptoms, Chlamydia can damage a woman’s reproductive organs.