Bytes

 
Published: Wednesday 31 January 2007

mobile friendly:
Researchers have found no link between mobile phone use and cancer. They used mobile-phone companies' records to gauge phone usage. They tracked subjects for an average of 8.5 years, and some followed up to 21 years. Joachim Schuz of the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology, Copenhagen, looked at more than 420,000 mobile phone users and checked them against records at the Danish Cancer Registry. Electromagnetic radiation from the phone's antennas can penetrate a little way into the brain, prompting fears that they might cause cancer. But the researchers found no increased incidence.
safe catch:
Five tonnes of marbled Antarctic cod (Notothenia rossii) were found by Polarstern, the research vessel maintained by the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, in the Antarctic waters.There are two hypotheses to explain the observed dense aggregation: one krill the main prey of the cod aggregate to form a band of dense shoals in close vicinity to its preferred habitat; and two certain seafloor topographies such as canyons or cliffs, may be conducive to its aggregation. The tendency to shoal made them an easy target for commercial fisheries.
parasite potency: Scientists are closer to understanding why a common parasite is harmless to most people while causing severe illness in others. Toxoplasma is carried by cats and rats in the UK and a large proportion of humans are also thought to carry the parasite without any ill effects. Toxoplasma is dangerous for people with weakened immune systems such as those with HIV and for women in the first three months of pregnancy. Their study reveals how the parasite injects a single protein into a cell it wants to invade and how this protein makes its way to the nucleus of the cell and interferes with the ability of the cell to trigger an immune defence.

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