UPI NewsTrack Health and Science News

Astronomers find multi-planet star system

LIVERMORE, Calif., Nov. 13 (UPI) -- U.S. astronomers say they have, for the first time, obtained images of a multi-planet star system, much like ours.

Bruce Macintosh, an astrophysicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said the new planetary system orbits a dusty young star named HR8799, which is 140 light years away and about 1.5 times the size of our sun.

Macintosh said three planets, roughly 10, 10 and 7 times the mass of Jupiter, orbit the star and the size of the planets decreases with distance from the parent star, much as do the planets do in our system.

"Every extrasolar planet detected so far has been a wobble on a graph," said Macintosh. "These are the first pictures of an entire system. We've been trying to image planets for eight years with no luck and now we have pictures of three planets at once. This is a milestone in the search and characterization of planetary systems around stars."

And he said there's a very high probability there are more planets in the system that we haven't yet detected.

The discovery is reported in the online preprint journal Science Express.

T-cell-based HIV-1 vaccine found effective

BOSTON, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- A U.S.-led team of scientists says it's demonstrated for the first time the effectiveness of a T-cell-based human immunodeficiency virus vaccine in monkeys.

Dr. Dan Barouch of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, who led the study, noted the failure last year of the V520 vaccine developed by Merck & Co. led many to question the value of pursuing development of T-cell-based HIV-1 vaccines.

But the new study showed an improved vaccine produced strong T-cell immune responses, and long-term immune control of a simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) in monkeys.

"Despite the disappointing setbacks in HIV-1 vaccine development this past year … our data show that T-cell vaccines that elicit greater magnitude, breadth and quality of immune responses as compared with the Merck vaccine can result in improved protection in the rhesus monkey model of AIDS," said Barouch.

The study that included scientists from the University of California-Irvine, Duke University, the New England Primate Research Center and the Netherlands corporations TNO Biosciences and Crucell Holland BV appears in the advance of print online edition of the journal Nature.

U.N. issues Asian environmental report

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- A United Nations Environmental Program report says cities across Asia are becoming darker due, in part, to greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere.

The U.N. study found cities from Beijing to New Delhi are becoming darker, glaciers in mountain ranges such as the Himalayas are melting faster and weather systems are becoming more extreme -- all combined effects of man-made atmospheric brown clouds.

The UNEP report was based on a study of a nearly two-mile (3 kilometer) thick layer of soot and other manmade particles that stretches from the Arabian Peninsula to China and the western Pacific Ocean.

"One of UNEP's central mandates is science-based early warning of serious and significant environmental challenges," said U.N. Under Secretary-General Achim Steiner, who also serves as the UNEP's executive director. "I expect the atmospheric brown cloud to be now firmly on the international community's radar as a result of (the) report."

Additional information is available at www.unep.org.

Study: Genetics can predict heart problems

NEW ORLEANS, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- A U.S. study suggests identifying a single, common variation in a person's genetic information can help predict heart attack or other heart disease events.

"This DNA variation at the 9p21 chromosomal region is not a mutation; it is a genetic variant," said Ariel Brautbar of the Baylor College of Medicine, the study's lead author. "We already know that 9p21 DNA variation is associated with a greater risk of heart events, but now we have shown its direct usefulness to patient care by adding it to traditional risk factor measurements."

He said by identifying a higher risk factor, someone presenting in the intermediate risk group could be moved into a higher or lower risk category, depending on whether he or she has the genetic variant.

The study also included scientists at the University of Texas, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; the University of Minnesota and the Texas Heart Institute.

The research was presented this week in New Orleans during the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions.