Discover8 is a new scientific communications database where registered users can suggest, comment and rate scientific communications. Its also possible to recommend any article with a valid web link (for instance your own articles 
).
A large number of topics related to life sciences are present.
Take a look at it at http://www.discover8.com/
The 7th International Symposium on Polyelectrolytes, Polyelectrolytes 2008, will be held in Coimbra, Portugal in June 2008.
You can already bookmark the conference homepage.
University of Aveiro, Portugal
6 and 7 September 2007
“The aim of the SMARTER meeting is to bring together specialists from the different areas of materials science, such as materials chemists and processing engineers, diffraction and spectroscopy scientists, and computational structuralists, that may contribute to the development of a common language for a SMARTER approach to structure solving, using Geometrical, Diffraction Modeling and NMR Crystallographies.”
workshop homepage: http://www.primarius.pt/smarter/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=1
INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF BIOLOGICAL MAGNETIC RESONANCE
8th Course: Biophysics and the Challenges of Emerging Threats
“This course will provide an overview of biophysical and structural methods in biology. It will present technologies related to pathogen detection and treatment using these methods. Furthermore, it will teach basic principles and demonstrate concrete examples, encouraging technology growth and transfer to partner countries.“
Homepage: http://smrl.stanford.edu/erice2007/
A team of researchers has found a feaseble way of producing universal red blood cells. This is a very important step towards the goal of improving the blood supply while enhancing the safety of clinical transfusions.
In the new study, the researchers found two bacterial glycosidase gene families with enzymes that efficiently remove A and B antigens from red blood cells (RBCs).
The reference to the the work is the following:
“Bacterial glycosidases for the production of universal red blood cells.” Qiyong P Liu, Gerlind Sulzenbacher, Huaiping Yuan, Eric P Bennett, Greg Pietz, Kristen Saunders, Jean Spence, Edward Nudelman, Steven B Levery, Thayer White, John M Neveu, William S Lane, Yves Bourne, Martin L Olsson, Bernard Henrissat & Henrik Clausen. Nature Biotechnology Published online: 1 April 2007 doi:10.1038/nbt1298
abstract in: http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v25/n4/abs/nbt1298.html
see also related news in:
http://www.scientistsolutions.com/index.php?a=topic&t=4067
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=66786
note: picture original location: http://science.uwe.ac.uk/research/uploads/CRIB_blood_cells.jpg
I found this video in youtube explaining how this atp synthase produces energy inside a cell. Take a look.
“Stem Cells as a Tool in Toxicology”
Organized by the Cell and Molecular Toxicology Research Area
International Courses on Toxicology 2007
Center for Neurosciences and Cell Biology
University of Coimbra, Portugal
Auditório da Reitoria, March 21-23, 2007
http://cnc.cj.uc.pt/BEB/Toxicology0607.php
The objective of this course is to provide theoretical information on the use of stem cells as a tool in toxicology. Stem cells are an important new tool for the development of unique in vitro model systems to test drugs and chemicals and also a potential to predict or anticipate toxicity in humans.
Every day, we interact with a host of synthetic and natural chemicals whose importance shows up in our favourite sports. Advances in the chemical and materials sciences, in particular, have had a dramatic impact on sporting events. For example, the use of polymeric materials in car bodies results in lighter and faster vehicles in auto racing, and carbon composite materials help to protect the drivers in the cockpits of open wheel race cars. In tennis, skiing, bowling, and fishing, polymers, composites, and other advanced materials are used routinely to produce high-performance equipment.
Despite the great advantage from use of the knowledge give by Chemistry in sport, this relation it’s not always morally correct. All of us as already hear to talk about doping.
Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic games, was one of the first to point out the necessity of protecting sport from the dangers threatening it as an institution. In 1923, in a speech delivered in Rome, he denounced “the intrusion of politics into sports, the increasingly venal attitude towards championship, the excessive worshipping of sport, which leads to a belief in the wrong values, chauvinism, brutality, overworking, overtraining, and doping”.
The recent doping scandal of the last Tour de France cycling competition drew the attention of the media to practices which, until then, had remained covert. This media coverage has increased public awareness of this phenomenon. Indeed, due to their scope and sophistication, doping practices are a threat to more than just the world of sport. Though first considered to be no more than a cheating problem, the doping issue has reached such proportions that it now concerns society as a whole. As the stakes involved in sport grow higher and the phenomenon more widespread, the moral values attached to sport are increasingly called into question and the health of athletes increasingly at risk.
History, confirms that the use of chemical shortcuts to success in sports is an age-old problem. Recorded drug use goes back more than two thousand years. The Roman gladiators, who ate mushrooms and seeds that affected the mind, also drank herbal stimulants to dull their fear and to make them stronger and more able.
As early as the late 19th century cyclists were using substances like caffeine, cocaine and ether-coated sugar cubes to improve performance, reduce pain and delay fatigue. Nazi Germany athletes were rumoured to use the first rudimentary testosterone preparations in the 1936 Summer Olympics.
Nowadays an Italian judge is investigating the suspicious death of 70 football stars amid fears that drugs their clubs gave them may have triggered their fatal illnesses. Raffaele Guariniello, a magistrate in Turin, is probing the unusually high incidence of cancer, leukaemia and a rare disease of the nervous system among players who have appeared for top clubs such as Juventus, Roma and Milan. ‘Out of 400 deaths since 1960, we are investigating 70 suspicious ones,’ said Guariniello, who is researching the records of 24,000 professional Italian players between 1960 and 1996. ‘Many more players are dying of these diseases than members of the public.’
Athletes use androgenic–anabolic steroids to increase strength, lean body mass, and, in some cases, to improve physical appearance. To minimize the risk of developing tolerance to any particular agent, androgenic–anabolic steroids are taken as a cocktail of different agents taken at one time. In English-speaking countries, the process is called “stacking.” Perhaps the most worrisome aspect of this problem is its universality. Abuse of these agents is said to be widespread amongst both amateur and professional athletes. According to the International Olympic Committee, steroids account for more than 50% of positive doping cases. Although the topic is still being debated, and most of the evidence is anecdotal, a consensus is beginning to emerge that chronic androgenic–anabolic steroids abuse may be associated with an increased risk of sudden cardiac death, myocardial infarction, altered serum lipoproteins, and cardiac hypertrophy.
Keep in mind that sport It’s great but wining it’s not everything.
http://www.drugfreesport.org.nz/Students+Section/Anti-doping+History.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_athletes_who_tested_positive_for_banned_substances
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_at_the_Olympic_Games
Paulo J. S. Gomes
We all know that an important part of the scientific work is related to communicating your findings to your peers. So here are a couple of texts on the subject (from the “Improbable research” site). I hope you find them useful .
“How to write a scientific paper“, by E. Robert Schulman
” How To Make a Scientific Lecture Unbearable” , by Alexander Khon
The II Reunião Ibérica de Colóides e Interfaces (RICI) and VIII Reunión del Grupo Especializado de Coloides e Interfases de las Reales Sociedades de Química y Física (GECI) will be held in the Department of Chemistry of the University of Coimbra from 11th to 13th July 2007. This is being organised by the Grupo de Colóides Polímeros e Interfaces of the Sociedade Portuguesa de Química, and will include plenary lectures, oral contributions and posters followed by discussion.
Meeting homepage: http://www.uc.pt/gcpi
jmgs
pgomes
filipefernandes