NASA assigns final shuttle crew
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Sept. 21 (UPI) -- NASA has assigned the astronauts who will make the last scheduled space shuttle trip, targeted to launch in September 2010 to the International Space Station.
The historic mission, designated STS-133, will involve space shuttle Endeavour delivering a pressurized logistics module to the space station.
The space agency said retired Air Force Col. Steven Lindsey will command the eight-day mission, with Air Force Col. Eric Boe serving as pilot. Astronauts assigned to the mission are Air Force Col. Benjamin Alvin Drew Jr., Michael Barratt, Army Col. Timothy Kopra and Nicole Stott.
Astronaut biographical information is available at http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios.
Blood test could detect colon, GI cancer
BERLIN, Sept. 21 (UPI) -- Two new blood tests can aid in the early identification of patients with gastrointestinal cancers, researchers in Belgium have found.
Dr. Joost Louwagie of OncoMethylome Sciences, a company in Liege, Belgium, said the scientists collected blood before surgery from 193 patients known to have colorectal cancer, as well as from 688 controls undergoing colonoscopy for cancer screening.
DNA was extracted from the blood plasma and tested for the presence of DNA methylation of specific genes. DNA methylation is involved in the regulation of protein expression, and methylation or silencing of key genes has been linked to the initiation and progression of tumours.
Based on studies conducted in colorectal tissues, methylated genes that were capable of discriminating accurately between cancerous and normal tissues were chosen.
"Once validated in a prospective colorectal screening trial, the new methylation test could be used as a non-invasive screening option for patients who decline or do not have access to colonoscopy or do not wish to undertake the fecal occult blood test," Louwagie said in a statement.
The findings were presented in Berlin at the joint 15th congress of the European Cancer Organization and 34th Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology in Berlin.
River deltas sinking due to human activity
BOULDER, Colo., Sept. 21 (UPI) -- A U.S.-led international scientific team says it has determined that Earth's river deltas are sinking due to human activity, many having recent severe flooding.
The researchers, led by University of Colorado-Boulder Professor James Syvitski, found 24 of the world's 33 major deltas are sinking, making them increasingly vulnerable to flooding from rivers and ocean storms and putting tens of millions of people at risk.
The study concludes the sinking of deltas from Asia and India to the Americas is exacerbated by the upstream trapping of sediments by reservoirs, dams, man-made channels and levees that carry sediment into the oceans, as well as the accelerated compacting of floodplain sediment caused by the extraction of groundwater and natural gas.
About 500 million people in the world live on river deltas.
The researchers, using data supplied by NASA satellites, predict global delta flooding could increase by 50 percent under current projections of about 18 inches in sea level rise by the end of the century, as forecast by the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.
The research that included Dartmouth College, Louisiana State University, the City College of New York, the Geological Survey of Japan, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the University of Southampton in England appears in the Sept. 20 issue of the journal Nature Geoscience.
Reactive oxygen has key role in metastasis
LA JOLLA, Calif., Sept. 21 (UPI) -- Scientists at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in California say they've discovered reactive oxygen plays a key role in cancer metastasis.
The researchers, led by Professor Sara Courtneidge, said they determined reactive species, such as superoxide and hydrogen peroxide, help form invadopodia -- cellular protrusions implicated in cancer cell migration. They found inhibiting reactive oxygen reduces invadopodia formation, thereby limiting cancer cell invasion.
"Reactive oxygen has a complex cellular role," Courtneidge said. "Normal cells use reactive oxygen to signal, grow and move. Immune cells, such as neutrophils, produce reactive oxygen to destroy bacteria. Now we find that reactive oxygen is necessary for invadopodia formation, which allows cancer cells to become metastatic."
Courtneidge said invadopodia facilitate cancer cell migration by breaking down the extracellular matrix that normally keeps cells in place.
Using invadopodia-rich mouse fibrosarcoma cells, Courtneidge and her colleagues tested a number of antioxidants and found both a marked reduction in invadopodia formation and invasive behavior. The scientists repeated the experiments with human melanoma, head and neck and breast cancer cell lines and also saw a marked reduction in invadopodia formation.
The scientists said their findings might lead to new cancer drug interventions.
The study appears in the Sept. 15 issue of the journal Science Signaling.
