UPI NewsTrack Health and Science News

NASA announces 'unprecedented' achievement

PASADENA, Calif., Feb. 4 (UPI) -- NASA astronomers say they have developed a technique that can identify organic molecules on a planet nearly 63 light years from Earth.

The researchers, using a relatively small Earth-based telescope, successfully measured details of an exoplanet's atmospheric composition and conditions -- a feat NASA calls "an unprecedented achievement from an Earth-based observatory."

The accomplishment, the space agency said, promises to accelerate by years the search for prebiotic, or life-related, molecules on planets orbiting stars beyond our solar system.

The scientists used NASA's 30-year-old, 10-foot-diameter (3-meter) telescope at the space agency's Infrared Telescope Facility atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

"The fact that we have used a relatively small, ground-based telescope is exciting because it implies that the largest telescopes on the ground, using this technique, may be able to characterize terrestrial exoplanet targets," said Mark Swain, an astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the study's lead author.

The research that included scientists from the University of Arizona, University College London; UCLA, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Germany's Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy and the SOFIA Institute is reported in the journal Nature.

How H1N1 flu was stopped at a summer camp

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Feb. 4 (UPI) -- Providing preventive Tamiflu and emphasizing the need for repeated hand sanitizer use helped stop H1N1 flu at an Alabama summer camp, a researcher says.

Dr. David Kimberlin of the University of Alabama at Birmingham volunteered at a boys' summer camp in northern Alabama last summer where three campers were confirmed to have H1N1.

The camp occurred in July before the H1N1 vaccine was widely available.

Kimberlin said the preventive measures undertaken at the Alabama camp were successful once the three flu-sickened campers were isolated, treated and sent home to recover. The remaining 171 campers did not acquire flu at the camp.

The preventive measures included prescribing and giving a 10-day Tamiflu course to all campers staying in the cabins adjoining the sick campers, including all counselors and camp staff, and closely monitoring their symptoms. Also, alcohol-based hand sanitizer was provided at each of the camp's daily activities, in the boys' cabins and in the dining hall.

"The bottom line is prevention worked," Kimberlin said in a statement. "Here we have a real-world example of how planning, prevention, coordination and public-health common sense prevailed, and these kids have a great experience to look back on."

His findings are published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Hawaiian bird deaths may trigger lawsuit

LIHUE, Hawaii, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- Four Hawaiian organizations and the American Bird Conservancy say they might file a lawsuit over the continuing deaths of rare native seabirds.

The organizations, including the Conservation Council for Hawaii and the Center for Biological Diversity, all represented by the public interest environmental law firm Earthjustice, say they sent notice to the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative that its refusal to implement measures to protect Hawaiian petrels and Newell's shearwaters from fatal collisions with its power lines violates the Endangered Species Act.

"Because KIUC has refused to modify its power lines to minimize bird strikes, literally thousands of critically imperiled seabirds have died needlessly," said biologist Don Heacock, a member of the Conservation Council for Hawaii. "Year after year, I've picked up dozens upon dozens of shearwaters -- injured or already dead -- under KIUC's lines."

Newell's shearwaters, which were listed as a threatened species in 1975, are found only in Hawaii, with the majority of birds nesting on the island of Kauai. A recent study found the shearwater population on Kauai had decreased by 75 percent in just 15 years, officials said.

Earthjustice said since each bird killed is a separate violation of the Endangered Species Act, with each violation subject to a fine of $50,000, KIUC could face millions of dollars in fines.

Cause of islet cell rejection discovered

TOKYO, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- Japanese scientists say they've identified the cause of early rejection of transplanted pancreatic islet cells used in treating type 1 diabetes.

The researchers at the Riken Institute and Fukuoka University said their discovery sets the stage for development of powerful new treatment techniques.

Currently, the most widely-used treatment for type 1 diabetes is the regular injection of insulin, the researchers said. While islet cell transplantation -- the transplantation of insulin-producing cells from a donor pancreas -- is a promising alternative approach, the scientists said the procedure has achieved only limited success due to a strong and rapid immune-mediated rejection of transplanted I islets.

Now, in the new study, the researchers said they've demonstrated that HMGB1, a nuclear protein whose precise function has previously been unclear, is produced by the islet cells and directly triggers their early rejection.

Based on that finding, the scientists developed a system to measure the level of HMGB1 in the blood and determine the onset of rejection -- information they said they used to establish a treatment four times more effective than earlier islet transplantation protocols.

The study is reported in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.