decay in Biological News

End in sight for the dreaded dentist drill

... A new technology that spots tooth decay almost as soon as it's begun promises to reduce ... each molecule's unique fingerprint. It detects decay simply and painlessly by pointing a tiny optical ... College London, said: 'The earlier you spot decay the better as you can remineralise the area so ...

Fresh from the grapevine to the table

... grapes are subject to serious water loss and decay while making the long trip from the vine to ... grapes. Sulfur dioxide as a method of controlling decay has been in use for over 75 years. Since the late ... in maintaining grape quality and preventing decay for periods ranging from 33 to 117 days. The ...

Researchers discover critical detail of cellular defense against genetic mistakes

... surveillance system called nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) that determines which mRNAs are fit to ... cap-binding protein promotes the recognition and decay of flawed mRNAs. The team also demonstrated how ... results is that we have a new target by which the decay of faulty mRNA can be prevented. In cases where a ...

Newly discovered reactions from an old drug may lead to new antibiotics

... a new line of antibiotics for bacteria that commonly cause diarrhea, tooth decay and, in some severe cases, death. The trace mineral selenium is found ... established that stannous salts are more effective at preventing tooth decay and inhibiting growth of T. denticola, but the mechanism of this ...

Protecting fresh-cut produce

... browning in all locations, but decreased with time as lettuce continues to decay even in cold storage. When treated with the two highest levels of ... in this study. Reduction of oxidation, which causes the browning and decay of cut product, may also be related to an increase of other antioxidants. ...

Modern lifestyle prevents tooth decay

... dental health education most people now know the best way to prevent tooth decay is to brush with fluoride toothpaste twice a day, especially before going to bed. Rates of tooth decay have fallen dramatically over the past 20 years. ...

Biotech scientists team with curators to stem decay of world's art, cultural heritage

... conference in Caracas designed to promote innovative ways to stem the decay of some of humanity's greatest art and cultural treasures. "With the ... warmth and dampness, attract mold, micro-organisms and insects, causing decay and disintegration. New biotechnology techniques to be described ...

Major source of radon exposure overlooked at former Ohio uranium-processing plant

... the K-65 silos. "Uranium raffinate has high levels of radium and radon decay products," explains Pinney, "and for more than 30 years the K-65 silos ... locations. By studying the number of tracks left on the film by radon decay products, they found the second radon source. "Radon gas disperses ...

Using novel tool, UD researchers dig through cell 'trash' and find treasure

... microRNAs direct enzymes to cut the messenger RNAs in two. The resulting decay products--or "cell trash," as German refers to them--are the focus of the ... and determine exactly what is happening and what enzymes are affected in decay processes," German said. "The focus is changing," he noted. "Work that ...

Comparing apples and pears

... explanation of the everyday experience that pears are more susceptible to decay during storage. Apples and pears continue to "breathe" after picking. ... the paper. However, the results do help explain why pears are so prone to decay during storage: "The micro-channels are so small that oxygen supply to the ...

Development of new techniques to understand marble quality and durability

... collaborate in a project to explain the causes for marble physical decay and design new identification and conservation methods. The study, says ... their maintenance. The objective is to prevent the phenomenon of marble decay observed in many European buildings, often developed in very short spaces ...

The top 5 ways medical physics has changed health care

... and antimatter annihilating one another. The short-lived radionuclides decay and emit particles known as positrons -- the antimatter equivalent to ... techniques. Other techniques, such as radioimmunoassay, use the decay of radioactive materials to study a variety of physiological conditions by ...

Particle accelerator may reveal shape of alternate dimensions

... create new high-energy and highly unstable particles, which quickly decay into a shower of detectable lower energy ones. Characteristic patterns of decay serve as fingerprints of the fleeting exotic particles and, possibly, the ...

American Chemical Society's Weekly PressPac -- Nov. 14, 2007

... Sweet magnolia: Tree bark extract fights bad breath and tooth decay Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry Sweet magnolia does more ... bark extract kill most oral bacteria that cause bad breath and tooth decay within 30 minutes. The extract could be a boon for oral health when added ...

October Geology and GSA Today media highlights

... Canada; et al. Pages 879-892. Because soft-bodied organisms quickly decay after death, preservation of soft body parts is the exception rather than ... to a sudden increase in ocean mass, most likely caused by the final decay of the Labrador sector of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. This finding suggests ...

Scientists in first global study of 'poison' gas in the atmosphere

... solvents they are used by industry. They are short-lived and they decay rapidly, but they decay into phosgene. "It's very toxic and pretty nasty stuff - its ...

September Geology and GSA Today media highlights

... archaeology. The technique works by measuring the amount of radioactive decay in some carbon atoms that are taken into an organism or a skeleton during ... As carbon is no longer taken in after the organism dies, the amount of decay can indicate how much time has passed since the organic matter was alive - ...

OJ worse for teeth than whitening says Eastman Institute researchers

... hardness or surface enamel was found from whitening. Weakened and eroded enamel may speed up the wear of the tooth and increase the risk for tooth decay to quickly develop and spread. "Most soft drinks, including sodas and fruit juices, are acidic in nature," Ren said. "Our studies demonstrated that ...

University of Leicester geologists demonstrate extent of ancient ice age

... 'lid' on the oceans preventing atmospheric oxygen penetrating to the seafloor. The absence of oxygen under such conditions served to shut down decay accounting for the preservation of these fossils." Page added that the burial of oil shales in deglacial anoxia "may have been a negative ...

New tool isolates RNA within specific cells

... Michael D. Cleary, who as a doctoral student at Stanford University unveiled the T. gondii-based approach for use in analyzing RNA synthesis and decay in 2005 in Nature Biotechnology. Cleary, now a faculty member at the University of California, Merced, worked on the UO project as a postdoctoral ...

Changing climate will lead to devastating loss of phosphorus from soil

... because high phosphorus concentrations in surface waters can lead to harmful algal blooms which can be toxic, cause lack of oxygen during their decay and disrupt food webs. This can also affect the quality of water for drinking and result in the closure of recreational water sport facilities." ...

Diet secrets of 'the Royals'

... for example, common carbon-12 versus rare carbon-13. The method used in the study involves analyzing ratios of stable isotopes those that do not decay radioactively. Cerling used the method in a 2006 study that showed how isotope analysis and tracking collars could be used to monitor ...

Scripps scientists help decode mysterious green glow of the sea

... active in temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit). Higher temperatures, however, caused the bioluminescence to decay rapidly. The light also proved resilient in settings of low oxygen levels. Based on these tests, the researchers believe the chemical process ...

New approach discovered to lowering triglycerides

... vegetables. A powerful antioxidant, it's been of considerable research interest in recent years for its apparent ability to reduce mitochondrial decay in cells and perhaps slow the process of aging. And it's been used in Europe for decades as a treatment for the neuropathic complications of ....

Decisive action needed as warming predictions worsen, says expert

... per million over the current 386 ppm, with possibly devastating consequences for global climate. Warming in the Arctic is expected to speed up the decay of plant matter that has been in cold storage in permafrost for thousands of years. "There is about 1,000 billion tons of carbon in these soils," ...

Bacterial biofilms as fossil makers

... BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Bacterial decay was once viewed as fossilization's mortal enemy, but new research suggests bacterial biofilms may have actually helped preserve the fossil record's ...

Protecting neurons could halt Alzheimer's, Parkinson's diseases

... called GW5074 which was shown to prevent neurodegeneration in a past report published by the D'Mello lab. While effective at protecting neurons from decay or death, GW5074 is toxic to cells at slightly elevated doses, which makes it unsuitable for clinical testing in patients. The newly ...

Study: Tropical wetlands hold more carbon than temperate marshes

... off from farm fields, roads, parking lots and other surfaces. But wetlands are also a natural source of methane, and bacteria present during the decay of organic material cause wetlands to release this greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. "A big issue in wetland science is how carbon ...

Kazak apple research key to preventing blue mold

... budwood or from other wild seedling trees in Kazakhstan. The objective of the study was to determine disease resistance to postharvest blue mold decay among apples from the Kazakhstan germplasm (Kazak) collection. According to Janisiewicz, "Our results indicate a greater genetic diversity among the ...

Extending the life of fresh cranberries

... marketable fruit declined substantially over time in all storage conditions, with 41% to 57% becoming unmarketable after 2 months as a result of both decay and physiological breakdown." Forney concluded that relative humidity had a greater effect on fruit storage life than temperature. After five ...

Flooding might help lower gas emission from wetlands

... are responsible for about 60 percent of methane emissions worldwide, wetlands are among the natural sources. Bacteria that produce methane during the decay of organic material cause wetlands to release the gas into the atmosphere. The study by Ohio State University scientists is part of ongoing ...

Relearning process not always a 'free lunch'

... of synaptic connections, then free-lunch learning will be observed. However, the authors show here that if forgetting is induced by directional decay in synaptic connectivity, then negative free-lunch learning occurs. This suggests that evolution may have selected physiological mechanisms that ...

Defining DNA differences to track and tackle typhoid

... may have found Typhi 's Achilles' heel: in adapting to an exclusively human lifestyle, it has become complacent, its genome is undergoing genetic decay and it's heading up an evolutionary dead end in humans. "We believe that concerted vaccination programmes, combined with epidemiological studies ...

UC San Diego researchers could help US military thwart explosive threats

... mobility spectrometry); neutron activation, in which the machines bombard the suspect explosives with neutrons and read the gamma radiation decay signatures to determine the chemical compositions of the sample; and specially trained dogs. "The U.S. government is always looking for improved ...

Programmed death boosts business

... such as hospitals, removed malfunctioning or ineffective parts of their business and operations and so prevent the spread of commercial decay that could spread throughout an organisation and lead ultimately to its demise. Programmed cell death, known in biological circles as apoptosis, ...

Ozone hole recovery may reshape southern hemisphere climate change

... climate change occurred quickly, over 20 to 30 years, in response to the rapid onset of the ozone hole," he said. "These seasonal changes will decay more slowly than they built up, since it takes longer to cleanse the stratosphere of ozone-depleting gases than it took for them to build up." The ...

Scientists launch first comprehensive database of human oral microbiome

... how microbes contribute to sustaining health and, when their community dynamics are perturbed, play a role in common chronic disease, such as tooth decay and periodontal disease in the mouth. In December 2007, NIH launched the Human Microbiome Project that initially will sequence all of the genes, or ...

Exposure to low levels of radon appears to reduce the risk of lung cancer, new study finds

... (scientists believe that the low doses of toxins may stimulate repair mechanisms in cells). Home exposure to radon, a naturally occurring radioactive decay product of radium, has been thought to be the second leading cause of lung cancer, after cigarette smoking. Chemically inert, it can percolate out of ...

New window opens on the secret life of microbes

... -- which number about 5 million trillion trillion strong (no, that is not a typo) on Earth -- affect virtually every ecological process, from the decay of organic material to the production of oxygen. But even though microbes essentially rule the Earth, scientists have never before been able to ...

Bright lights: Mystery of glowing antibody solved by Scripps research scientists

... other antibody-stilbene complexes, where binding merely enhances stilbene fluorescence by inhibiting photoisomerization, the dominant nonradiative decay pathway of stilbene in solution. In fact, the unusual binding mode of stilbene in EP2-19GE2 is enabled by a non-canonical interface of the ...