Press Releases - July 2007
Archive
30 July 2007 - ESO
Birth of a Colossus on Wheels
The first of two spectacular vehicles for the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) Observatory rolled out of its hangar and passed successfully a series of tests. This colossus will be able to transport a 115-ton antenna and set it down on a concrete pad within millimetres of a prescribed position.
30 July 2007 - EMBL
Uncovering the secrets of the deep
The UniProt Consortium, which includes the European Molecular Biology Laboratory's European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), has added a new database repository for metagenomic and environmental data to its family of protein sequence databases.
24 July 2007 - ESA
Name and designer logo revealed for Paolo Nespoli's Shuttle mission to the ISS
ESA and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) today announced that they have chosen the name for the upcoming mission of astronaut Paolo Nespoli, a member of the STS-120 crew assigned to a Shuttle launch next October.
12 July 2007 - ESO
The Gobbling Dwarf that Exploded
A unique set of observations, obtained with ESO's VLT, has allowed astronomers to find direct evidence for the material that surrounded a star before it exploded as a Type Ia supernova. This strongly supports the scenario in which the explosion occurred in a system where a white dwarf is fed by a red giant.
11 July 2007 - EMBL
EMBL expands to Australia
Today, delegates representing the
19 member states of the European Molecular Biology
Laboratory [EMBL] offered Australia associate membership in
EMBL's international community. The membership is planned
to start officially in January 2008 and will initially last for seven
years.
9 July 2007 - EMBL
A stepwise retreat: how immune cells catch pathogens
To protect us from disease our immune system employs macrophages, cells that roam our body in search of disease-causing bacteria. With the help of long tentacle-like protrusions, macrophages can catch suspicious particles, pull them towards their cell bodies, internalise and destroy them. Using a special microscopy technique, researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) now for the first time tracked the dynamic behaviour of these tentacles in three dimensions.
8 July 2007 - EMBL
A gene that protects from kidney disease
Researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL] and the University of Michigan have discovered a gene that protects us against a serious kidney disease.
6 July 2007 - ESO
Star Surface Polluted by Planetary Debris
Looking at the chemical composition of stars that host planets, astronomers have found that while dwarf stars often show iron enrichment on their surface, giant stars do not. The astronomers think that the planetary debris falling onto the outer layer of the star produces a detectable effect in a dwarf star, but this pollution is diluted by the giant star and mixed into its interior.