Latest University of Leeds Stories
A key building block in the Schmallenberg virus could be targeted by anti-viral drugs, according to a new study led from the University of Leeds. The disease, which causes birth defects and stillbirths in sheep, goats and cattle, was first discovered in Germany in late 2011 and has already spread to more than 5,000 farms across Europe, and 1,500 farms in the UK alone. There is currently no way of treating infected animals, but a study published in Nucleic Acids Research reports that the...
The chance of infection in some hospital wards varies dramatically according to whether the nurses leave the windows open. A University of Leeds-led team studied airflow in a "Nightingale" ward—a classic hospital ward design that traditionally accommodates two rows of up to 30 beds—by using tracer gases to simulate how airborne infections spread. They found ventilation in the ward was generally good when windows were left open, keeping the danger of airborne infection low. But risks...
A University of Leeds-led study, published in the journal Ecology Letters, overturns the common assumption that evolution only occurs gradually over hundreds or thousands of years. Instead, researchers found significant genetically transmitted changes in laboratory populations of soil mites in just 15 generations, leading to a doubling of the age at which the mites reached adulthood and large changes in population size. The results have important implications in areas such as disease and...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A research team at the University of Leeds may have solved the question of how objects from space could have kindled life on Earth. Scientists generally accept that some of the important ingredients for life came from meteorites impacting the early Earth. However, they have not been able to explain how that inanimate rock transformed into the building blocks of life. The new study, published in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta,...
Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online As a child, we all learned about how the rings of a tree could tell us how old the tree was. Did you know that now we can know how much rainfall occurred year-to-year through this same tried and true method? Well, with a twist. A research study led by a team from the University of Leeds has used tree rings from eight cedar trees in Bolivia to determine and document a 100-year history of rainfall across the Amazon River Basin, the...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Tropical rainfall can be significantly affected by deforestation, a new study finds, which can have potentially devastating impacts for people living in and near the Amazon and Congo forests. The research team, a collaboration between the University of Leeds and NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, found that for a majority of the Earth's tropical land surface, air passing over extensive forests produces at least twice as much...
CALGARY, June 13, 2012 /PRNewswire/ - Oncolytics Biotech Inc. ("Oncolytics") (TSX:ONC, NASDAQ:ONCY) announced today that a paper entitled "Cell Carriage, Delivery, and Selective Replication of an Oncolytic Virus in Tumor in Patients," has been published in the latest issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine (Vol. 4 Issue 138 138ra77). The paper covers findings from a U.K. translational clinical trial (REO 013) investigating intravenous administration of REOLYSIN in...
Scientists have discovered the initial stages by which gypsum crystals form. Gypsum is a naturally occurring mineral which is often used in industrial processes and which in nature, if left alone for thousands of years, can grow into huge translucent, towering and eerie, crystals more than 10 metres tall. These are famed for their beauty in places such as the Cave of Crystals in Mexico. Nevertheless, the formation of gypsum has until now been largely unexplored. A study by researchers...
Two new studies into the "plumbing systems" that lie under volcanoes could bring scientists closer to predicting large eruptions. International teams of researchers, led by the University of Leeds, studied the location and behavior of magma chambers on the Earth's mid-ocean ridge system - a vast chain of volcanoes along which the Earth forms new crust. They worked in Afar (Ethiopia) and Iceland - the only places where mid-ocean ridges appear above sea level. Volcanic ridges (or...
The number of children with conditions such as muscular dystrophy, neurodegenerative disorders or severe cerebral palsy who are surviving into adulthood has been underestimated, a new study shows. Research led from the University of Leeds, has shown that the number of children and young adults in England with a 'life limiting condition' is far higher than had previously been thought and is increasing year on year. As numbers continue to rise, this will place a growing burden on pediatric...
