Word: hosts
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...When my host sister Kinga and I walked outside after dinner, however, the sky in front of us was graced by one of the brightest rainbows I'd seen in a long time. The entire arc and a fainter, second arc were visible against the clouds above the open fields that stretched from the edge of town. One end terminated near a red-brick church spire atop what might be the town's tallest building—over six hundred years old, according to Kinga...
Published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, the findings center around one gene variation that blocks a receptor from being expressed on the surface of red blood cells. Scientists had previously studied this genetic variant - found almost exclusively in Africans and their descendants - because it also conferred protection against an early form of malaria. (The malaria parasite needed the receptor to infect blood cells; without the receptor, the parasite starved and died.) More than 90% of sub-Saharan Africans lack the red-blood-cell receptor, along with two-thirds of African-Americans. But the variant that once saved its carriers...
...have good company. This week a separate team of researchers at the University of Texas announced they had found what may be the virus's "Achilles' heel" - a stretch of amino acids in the HIV envelope protein, which is necessary for the virus to attach to and infect host cells. Those amino acids, researchers say, could someday be a key therapeutic target and may help change the epidemic's course...
...Earlier this year, Austria released a stamp that shrank a football to, well, postage-stamp size, to mark the country's role as co-host of this year's European soccer championships. The self-adhesive stamps were not only circular, but made of the same polyurethane mix as the balls that players used in the June tournament. The Austrian post office printed some 500,000 and they sold for just under $6 each...
...biologist to understand the importance of corals - just ask any diver. The tiny underwater creatures are the architects of the beautiful, electric-colored coral reefs that lie in shallow tropical waters around the world. Divers swarm to them not merely for their intrinsic beauty, but because the reefs play host to a wealth of biodiversity unlike anywhere else in the underwater world. Coral reefs are home to more than 25% of total marine species. Take out the corals, and there are no reefs - remove the reefs, and entire ecosystems collapse...