Avian flu update
Researchers who have sequenced bird flu viruses that killed two people in Turkey in early January say that the virus has undergone recent mutations that have made H5N1 better adapted to live in humans than in birds, and also better adapted to the nose and throat regions than to the lungs. Several more beneficial mutations are needed to set off a full-blown pandemic, though, they added. Eighteen avian flu cases have been reported in Turkey over the last two weeks, and since the start of 2004, 148 human cases and 79 deaths have been reported worldwide. (Nature.com; WHO)
Unlikely polluters
A paper published in last week’s Nature suggests that plants may produce about 20 per cent of the methane entering the atmosphere each year. (Science News; Nature)
Comet dust retrieved
Geologists around the world are itching to get their hands on a pinch of comet dust, collected by NASA’s Stardust probe, whose collection capsule touched down in the Utah desert early Sunday morning. The probe made a rendez vous with the comet Wild 2 in January 2004, when it deployed a tennis-racket-shaped canister containing a light porous gel. The gel may have trapped more than 2,000 comet dust particles larger than 15 micrometres in size, scientists say. Studying the stuff will offer a snapshot of the Solar System’s make-up shortly after it formed, 4.6 billion years ago. (Newscientist.com; ESA)
Cholera’s sticky culprit
When it’s not afflicting us with diarrhea and nausea, Vibria cholerae-the bacterial culprit behind cholera-hitches a ride on zooplankton, microscopic multi-celled organisms found in brackish waters. Scientists report in Nature that Vibria uses the same sticky protein to stick to its aquatic friends, as well as to the intestinal cells of its hapless human host. Dr. Thomas Kirn, at Dartmouth College isolated the protein, named GpbA, which binds to sugar molecules protruding from the cells of zooplankton as well as the cells of the human intestine. When an unassuming human swallows unsanitized water-creatures and all-Vibria cells unstick GbpA from the zooplanktonic sugars and reglue themselves to the sugars protruding from the human gut. Since Vibria needs GbpA to survive in both of its temporary holdouts, the sticky protein may prove to be its Achilles’ heel. (Nature)
-Chris Damdar & Mike Ghenu
