Progression of retinal disease linked to cell starvation

... of nutrients. "This is the first study linking cone death in Retinitis Pigmentosa to a metabolic ... discs, resembling a stack of cookies. A cone stack is half the height of a rod stack. Stacks ... He discovered an interesting pattern. cone death always began after the major phase of rod ...

Discovering drugs, biofuels in tropical seas

... or snails, particularly the highly venomous cone snails found in Philippine waters. Leading this ... research on neurotoxins produced by cone snails, will participate as well. Although based ... potential medical efficacy can be found in each cone snail species. Named the Harvard Foundation's ...

Salk scientists identify key nerve navigation pathway

... accordingly. During development, the growth cone continuously pushes forward, while the ... mutants, Pfaffs team discovered that the growth cone becomes disordered. Rather than forming a distinct cap on the developing neuron, the cone is dispersed in pieces along both the forward end ...

Living fossils have hot sex

... Leafy fronds stick up above ground and a single cone male or female grows in the middle of the fronds. The cone looks similar to a pine cone but is green at early stages, and then turns ...

News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience

... astrocytic Ca 2+ oscillations. Growth cone motility was compromised in hippocampal neurons ... in spontaneous Ca 2+ signaling arrested growth cone advancement. Surface expression of the ... 5ppase-expressing astrocytes, and neuronal growth cone advancement was rescued by extrinsic expression ...

DEIMOS joins MARS and its satellite of instruments on seafloor

... transmit and receive an acoustic signal used to reveal what's in a narrow cone of water above the instrument. DEIMOS can discern everything from ... Horne says. DEIMOS emits an acoustic signal that spreads out in a cone shape from the 16.5-inch diameter transducer to a 115-yard circular area ...

Scientists map soils on an extinct American volcano

... diversity. Out of expansive rangelands rise sporadic yet majestic cinder cone volcanoes and mesas preserved by basalt, part of the Raton-Clayton ... approximately 62,000 years ago, is the youngest volcano in the field. The cone rises 396 m from the plain, reaching an altitude of 2,495 m above sea ...

Top biophysics award to Professor Ray Norton

... block the activity of ion channels. These toxins, isolated from marine cone snails and sea anemones, have potential therapeutic applications in the ... physical dependence. New non-opiate pain relief drugs based on marine cone snail toxins may be able to break the link with such long-term dependence. ...

USC biomedical team to participate in $6 million low vision project

... details, Grywacz said. This is a region with a high concentration of cone photoreceptors. Once that region is damaged, an individual can only see in the peripheral region of the retina, which has far fewer cone photoreceptors and can only deliver information of low resolution to the ...

University of Florida study provides insight into evolution of first flowers

... said. A pine tree produces pine cones that are either male or female, unlike flowers, which contain both male and female parts. But a male pine cone has almost everything that a flower has in terms of its genetic wiring. Douglas Soltis, chairman of the UF botany department, emphasized that the ...

Lyncean Technologies Inc. receives $1.2 M from NCRR to develop new imaging technique

... takes advantage of the unique properties of the CLS x-ray beam. The CLS x-ray beam emerges from a tiny spot (about 100 microns) and diverges in a cone to illuminate first the sample and then the gratings which are specifically designed to produce x-ray fringes. The diverging monochromatic beam ...

Measuring snow with a bucket, a windmill, and the sun?

... to a 5-gallon bucket that sits atop a simple wooden platform on a metal pole. The gage has a heating element to melt the snow as it collects in the cone of the bucket. The gage only turns on when snow is detected. Nearby is a data-collection box that is linked to the windmill and solar panels. When ...

Two-day symposium in Baltimore to tackle the promises and perils of proton radiotherapy

... creating therapeutic beam of protons. In theory, a thin beam of protons can destroy a tumor with less damage to surrounding tissues than the broader cone of X-ray photons. This is because the protons penetrate a specific distance into the body and release most of their energy at the very end of this ...

Elephant shark genome sequence leads to discovery of color perception in deep-sea fish

... Dr. Hunt is based at the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London (UCL). The research team found that the elephant shark had three cone pigments for color vision and, like humans, it accomplished this through gene duplication. Dr. Venkatesh said that the finding underscores the ...

Bright lights, not-so-big pupils

... about how these cells bear on behavior, the researchers examined pupil constriction in mice that had been genetically altered to be free of rod and cone function in order to focus on activity resulting from only melanopsin-containing cells. Flashing light at mice sitting in the dark, the team measured ...

Missouri Botanical Garden publishes first catalogue of plants of the Southern Cone

... The Missouri Botanical Garden Press (MBG Press) has published the first comprehensive database of the species of vascular plants for the Southern cone region, the southernmost areas of South America. Catlogo de las Plantas Vasculares del Cono Sur (Catalogue of the Plants of the Southern Cone) is a ...

Gene therapy restores vision to mice with retinal degeneration

... MGH team used the standard viral vector adeno-associated virus to deliver the gene encoding melanopsin throughout the retinas of mice whose rod and cone photoreceptors had degenerated from lack of a crucial protein. Four weeks after delivery of the gene, melanopsin normally produced in 1 percent ...

Academy participates in project to discover drugs, biofuels in tropical seas

... from bacteria associated with marine mollusks. One target is bacteria isolated from gastropod mollusks, or snails, particularly the highly venomous cone snails found in Philippine waters. Another target of research is shipworms, the marine equivalent of termites and the scourge of wooden structures ...

Atomic-resolution views suggest function of enzyme that regulates light-detecting signals in eye

... to the way light entering the retina is converted into a cascade of signals to the brain. This particular form of the enzyme comes from the cone photoreceptors of the retina and has not been well-researched, in contrast to its rod form. Rods are involved in night vision and motion sensation; ...

Birds migrate together at night in dispersed flocks, new study indicates

... look at bird-flight data Larkin had collected in the 1970s and '80s using low-power-density tracking radar. The radar directs microwaves in a narrow cone a "pencil-beam" that can be pointed at virtually any target within range. "If there is a bird target here, you can see it on the radar display as ...

Ants and avalanches: Insects on coffee plants follow widespread natural tendency

... Nature. The basic idea of self-organized criticality often is illustrated with a sand pile. As you trickle sand onto the cone-shaped pile, the cone grows and grows until it reaches a "state of criticality" where it stops growing. Add more sand, and the grains just slide down the sides in ...

'Electrospray' droplet research yields surprising, practical results

... Researchers have known for decades that applying an electric field to liquid drops causes the formation of structures that have a perfect cone at the leading edge. "Each drop takes on the shape of a chocolate kiss," Basaran said. Then, a thin ribbonlike strand of fluid is emitted from ...

December GEOLOGY and GSA TODAY media highlights

... might be more effective in reducing salinity than changes in agricultural practices. Nonlinear slope-dependent sediment transport in cinder cone evolution Jon Pelletier and Michael L. Cline, University of Arizona, Department of Geosciences, 1040 E. Fourth St., Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA. ...

A new target for painkillers

... who study the venoms of deadly, sea-dwelling cone snails. "We found a new way to treat a ... The study in rats found that cone snail toxins named RgIA and Vc1.1 can treat nerve ... The toxins in the study come from two cone snail species that eat worms, unlike relatives ...

Behavioral studies show UV contributes to marsupial color vision

... is a color-detection system based on two types of cone photoreceptors--those sensitive to short (SWS) ... unique to primates that have re-evolved a third cone type from the duplication of the MWS/LWS gene, ... that the presence of three spectrally distinct cone types, sensitive to short (SWS), medium (MWS), ...

Molecular miners find pain relief drugs from the sea

... in the venom of Conus victoriae, a marine cone snail found in tropical waters off the coast of Australia. All cone snails produce venom which they use to paralyse ... before killing and eating them. The venom of some cone snails is toxic to humans ?as many as 30 people ...

Lizard 'third eye' sheds light on evolution of color vision

... Human light-reception cells responsible for color vision are called cone cells or photoreceptors, and they contain only one kind of pigment per ... image results when light-triggered signals in the three different types of cone cells are compared by other nerve cells in the retina as well as the ....

A new focus for the mechanism of nerve growth

... impede neuronal advance." Forscher likened actin networks in the growth cone to a molecular treadmill that is constantly being assembled at the leading ... because filopodia are thought to play a key sensory role in growth cone guidance -- suggesting actin filament recycling and signaling may be ...

Multiple genes permit closely related fish species to mix and match their color vision

... isolated the seven genes that give rise to the pigment proteins. The seven cone types have maximum sensitivities ranging from the red end of the spectrum ... color vision, each cichlid species primarily expresses three of the seven cone pigment genes encoded by their genomes. It is not clear why such ...

Color perception is not in the eye of the beholder: It's in the brain

... in ways that were never before possible. The pigment that allows each cone in the human eye to react to different colors is very fragile and normal ... Williams to shine light directly into the eye to see what wavelengths each cone reflects and absorbs, and thus to which color each is responsive. In ...

Researchers discover underwater volcano

... With a growth rate of at least eight inches per day, the volcanic cone has rapidly emerged since the scientists' last expedition to this area in ... Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory. The water surrounding the volcanic cone is extremely turbid due to hydrothermal activity and the vigorous vents ...

Computer scientists join in search for ivory-billed woodpecker

... can be done to improve the habitat for this bird," he said. "We're pleased to be working alongside our partners in this ambitious venture." cone purposes to help natural scientists observe animals ?whether birds or mammals ?in the animals' habitats. Song and Goldberg have developed robots to ...

Does missing gene point to nocturnal existence for early mammals?

... classes of vertebrates does not exist in mammals." It is not yet clear how the functions of the two melanopsins differ but having different cone genes or 'opsins' allows vertebrates to detect different wavelengths of light and allows them to see colour. The Manchester team now hopes to ...

Study provides first look at the 'birth' of a retina cell

... his research group can use the fluorescent protein to illuminate the chain of events that occurs when a gene mutation interferes with rod -- or even cone -- development. "This model may give us the earliest look yet at some devastating diseases we are all eager to cure," he says. ...

UF scientists restore sight to chickens with blinding disease

... Like people, chickens possess color vision and function best in daylight. The predominant photoreceptor cell type in the chicken retina, the cone cell, is the same cell type that is essential for normal human vision. To develop the treatment, UF scientists constructed a virus able to infect ...

'Prosthetic' retinal cells let blind mice see light

... such as ChR2, in surviving retinal neurons may be another potential strategy for the treatment of complete blindness caused by rod and cone degeneration," they wrote. ...

Telling axons where to go - and grow

... for cell morphology, cell motility, and the development of neuronal projections. Changes in LIMK1 concentration have an impact in neuronal growth cone actin dynamics and axon formation. The authors focus on the RING finger protein Rnf6 due to its similarity to the previously identified protein ...

UCLA researchers identify key enzyme linked to childhood blindness

... It is caused by mutations in several different genes including RPE65. An important characteristic of this disease is that the light sensitive rod and cone cells remain intact in the retinas of Leber patients for a long time. "This suggests that replacement of RPE65 by gene therapy should correct the ...

Cerebral navigation: How do nerve fibers know what direction to grow in?

... receptors, ephexin1 is chemically modified, causing it to alter the cell's cytoskeleton, or internal scaffolding. This alteration makes the growth cone collapse, steering the axon in a new direction or halting its growth. In chicken motor neurons whose ephexin1 was inactivated, the axons grew into ...