spots in Biological News

American College of Medical Genetics affirms importance of newborn screening dried blood spots

... in the United States. "Residual dried blood spots are vital to effective newborn screening across ... debate recently whether the residual dried blood spots should be destroyed after screening and the ACMG ... about the use of the residual dried blood spots as well as to reinforce the value of ...

A card-swipe for medical tests

... medical samples, the sample stick had 15 raised spots of iron-nickel "permalloy," a magnetic material ... In the second study, the sample stick's alloy spots were replaced by the material that would be used on real medical test cards: microscopic spots or "addresses" of gold that were no longer than ...

Killer pulses help characterize special surfaces

... enhances the Raman spectrum a million times. Hot spots can occur, however, where the electric field ... characterization techniques cannot tell hot spots from cold spots, and create an average value ... the result of a small number of molecules in hot spots or a large number of molecules in cold spots," ...

'Twinkle after-effect' can help retinal patients detect vision loss quickly and cheaply

... identify the location and breadth of actual blind spots in people with retinal disease. The twinkle ... people fail to seek help when they develop blind spots in their vision, because their brains ... gold standard method for detecting blind spots (scotomas) is very expensive and time consuming ...

Color contrast is 'seen' by the brain early doors

... in which the contrast between the coloured spots in the foreground and their background colour affected the way the spots looked. People with this part of the brain intact would see the spots as different as they look different on varying ...

Map is first to track global human influences on ocean ecosystems

... 41 percent of oceans bear a serious human "footprint " and that few blue spots on our planet are likely pristine. "A series of papers have highlighted ... reefs are in trouble; nearly half have taken a hard human punch. Other spots of concern include seagrass beds, mangrove forests in estuaries, ...

Gene in male fish lures females into sex

... and identified a gene involved in producing yellow pigment cells in oval spots on the fishes' fins. These markings, known as egg-dummies, are found on ... expressed in the egg-dummies of a distantly related species, in which the spots developed on the pectoral fins rather than the anal fins. "The two kinds ...

Research could lead to new non-antibiotic drugs to counter hospital infections

... the worms that ate P. aeruginosa with low levels of phosphate died. The researchers dubbed the phenomenon "Red Death" since unexpected large red spots appeared on the worms before they died. "These findings provide novel insight into the mechanisms by which P. aeruginosa is able to shift from ...

Montana State grad's work helps diagnose skin cancer without a biopsy

... in Tennessee to build a handheld laser microscope that could someday reduce the number of biopsies needed to diagnose skin cancer. Suspicious spots on the skin often prompt dermatologists to remove skin samples for analysis. These procedures are currently the best way to diagnose skin cancers, ...

Carnegie Mellon researchers apply new statistical test

... studies," Davidson said. "The demise of the steel industry contributed to great improvements in Pittsburgh's air quality, but there are still hot spots where emissions can contribute to levels of PM2.5 over the federal standard." ...

Dancing 'adatoms' help chemists understand how water molecules split

... results in March 6 issue of the Physical Review Letters . "This mobility might interfere with some reactions and help others." Bustling Bright spots While exploring titanium dioxide as a way to split water into its hydrogen and oxygen pieces, researchers can use a technique called scanning ...

Microbot motors fit to swim human arteries

... down while remaining forceful enough, even at the sizes necessary to enter the bloodstream, for motors to swim against the blood's current and reach spots difficult to operate upon. Piezoelectricity is most commonly found in quartz watches and gas stoves. It is based on the ability of some ...

New technique is quantum leap forward in understanding proteins

... that vary at random. Covariance has proven quite effective at identifying critical residues that bind directly with other proteins or other spots on the same protein, which is the goal. But, unfortunately, the method also identifies a high percentage of residues that turn out to not be involved ...

CSHL scientists discover new way in which ubiquitin modifies transcriptional machinery

... enabled Tansey and colleagues to more comprehensively grasp how ubiquitin functions. They have discovered that Asr1 "glues" ubiquitin on to specific spots in the DNA-copying enzyme, called RNA polymerase II (abbreviated by scientists as RNA pol II). This enzyme is composed of 12 modules, each with a ...

The birds of Spain, in a digital ornithological encyclopedia

... levels; a special section on garden birds and two main blocks devoted to bird-watching trips and soundscapes. Twenty-seven of the best bird-watching spots in Spain are described in detail, accompanied by a general map of Spain and interactive maps of each individual itinerary with photo highlights of ...

CSHL scientists discover a new way in which epigenetic information is inherited

... that add these caps are guided to DNA by small RNA molecules. These guides themselves do not carry hereditary information, but they do mark the spots where DNA is to be modified. A team of scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) led by Professor Gregory J. Hannon, Ph.D., has now ...

Superglue from the sea

... or even stem cells to sites where bone fragments are glued, "simultaneously fixing the bone and delivering potent drugs or even genes to the spots where they are needed," Stewart says. And where pieces of bone now are cut out due to cancer, the adhesive might be used to firmly attach "tissue ...

Light pollution offers new global measure of coral reef health

... they're also incredibly fragile," Longcore said. "Using night light proximity, we were able to identify the most threatened and most pristine spots in an objective and easily repeatable way." The researchers did this by first classifying the light into three separate sources: urban areas, gas ...

Europe cores in EUROCORES: Ocean drilling in EuroMARC

... includes making sure that all the crew members pass their medical exam. Often, a site survey cruise precedes the main cruise to identify the best spots for the actual coring and to get the drill sites approved by bodies like IODP. In order to map the topography of the seafloor, a multi-beam echo ...

Researcher tricks immune system in diabetic mice

... CHICAGO -- The body's immune system hates strangers. When its security patrol spots a foreign cell, it annihilates it. This is the problem when people with type 1 diabetes undergo human islet cell transplantation. The islet cells ...

New technique eliminates toxic drugs in islet transplant in diabetic mice

... CHICAGO -- The body's immune system hates strangers. When its security patrol spots a foreign cell, it annihilates it. This is the problem when people with type 1 diabetes undergo human islet cell transplantation. The islet cells ...

The physics of star-forming clouds and the urban environment

... . HURRICANE SEASON ON JUPITER "Jupiter's atmosphere has been active during the last year with the Great, Little, and Oval Red spots merging, almost merging, or repelling each other. These jovian storms are all anticyclonic ... ...

Fish choose their leaders by consensus

... that reflect something about the health or fitness of the individual. For instance, a plump belly can indicate success in food gathering, while spots may indicate a parasitic infection. He then ran trials in which one, two, four, or eight sticklebacks had to choose between two replica fish, one ...

Innovations in Pediatric Medicine International Conference brings together pediatrics experts

... with the goal of improving timely diagnosis and outcomes. Her laboratory has developed a screening test that can be done on the dried blood spots routinely used for screening for other serious conditions. ...

Snakes, salamanders and other creatures thrive in areas with higher deer populations

... meters (approximately 33 feet by 33 feet). Five square wood boards measuring almost one square foot (30 centimeters square) were placed in random spots in each fenced and unfenced site. These boards are placed on top of the soil and act as rocks or other ground cover for salamanders, slugs and other ...

TheVisualMD.com launches new animated 3-D views of human body in action

... at BIF-2 here. His work lends itself not just to books and television programming; Nike hired Anatomical Travelogue to produce animated spots revealing the anatomy of a golfer's swing, and drug companies like Amgen and Pfizer are using the company's simulations to show how new drugs work at ...

Iron-moving malfunction may underlie neurodegenerative diseases, aging

... of a brownish waste material, lipofuscin, known as the "aging pigment." In skin cells, lipofuscin is the culprit responsible for the dreaded liver spots that appear with increasing age, but in nerve, muscle and other cells, its accumulation has more serious consequences. "How lipofuscin causes ...

Synthetic moleculues could add spice to fight against cancer

... will make the most sense to pursue. "Most of the interaction between our compound and the overactive protein comes from what are called hot spots on the protein's surface," said Chenglong Li, assistant professor of medicinal chemistry and pharmacognosy at Ohio State and an expert in ...

Largest study of its kind implicates gene abnormalities in bipolar disorder

... on their findings online Aug. 17, 2008 in Nature Genetics. "Faced with little agreement among previous studies searching for the genomic hot spots in bipolar disorder, these researchers pooled their data for maximal statistical power and unearthed surprising results," said NIMH Director Thomas ....

UCR graduate student discovers, names bacterium linked to psyllid yellows

... to huanglongbing or HLB disease, also known as citrus greening disease, so named because the disease causes the citrus fruit to retain some green spots even when the fruit is ripe. "Huanglongbing is Chinese for yellow dragon disease," Hansen explained. "Chinese farmers call the young, infected ...

EPA funds ground-breaking Lyme disease research

... that feed on mice and chipmunks frequently get infected with Lyme bacteria, whereas those that feed on squirrels and other animals do not. "Some spots within the Northeast are much riskier than others," said Cary Institute researcher Dr. Richard S. Ostfeld, "and we've developed specific hypotheses ...

Let the cat keep chasing the mouse

... the Oberpflzer Wald, the Erzgebirge, the Thringer Wald, the Lneburger Heide and even the extensive forest areas of Brandenburg are currently unmarked spots on the wildcat's distribution map. The populations in Hessen and in the Harz Mountains are also isolated from the population in Rhineland-Palatinate, ...

During Olympics, Cornell's Max Zhang studies air-quality in Beijing

... Zhang and graduate student Xing Wang traveled to Beijing in the summer of 2007 to take initial measurements of airborne particles in various spots around the city, from heavily trafficked highways to residential communities -- even inside restaurants. They used real-time analytical instruments ...

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 the need for drilling and filling, writes Patrick Walter in SCI's Chemistry & Industry ...

Wasps and bumble bees heat up, fly faster with protein-rich food

... nearly as warm on their return to the nest. "That is information other bees could potentially use," said Nieh. "Bees are very sensitive to hot spots in the colony." Bumble bees, but not wasps, will recruit other foragers to help exploit a valuable find; bees in the nest may judge the ...

Embryo biopsy does not affect early growth and risk of congenital malformations in PGD/PGS babies

... One or more minor malformations were recorded in 24 PGD/PGS children, 23 ICSI children and 13 SC children. Skin anomalies (moles or spots and various birth marks) were the most frequently observed minor malformations in 18 ICSI children (25.7%), 14 PGD/PGS children (20%) and 10 SC ...

New electrostatic-based DNA microarray technique could revolutionize medical diagnostics

... tests and targeted therapies that can stem from assays using a DNA microarray a thumbnail-sized substrate containing thousands of microscopic spots of oligonucleotides (stretches of DNA about 20 base pairs in length) laid out in a grid. Often referred to as "gene chips," DNA microarray assays ...

Montana State University researchers map iron transport protein

... said having that picture, which depicts all the nooks and crannies on the proteins surface, could allow drug companies to design drugs to fit those spots like puzzle pieces. If a future drug fits those nooks just right, it could help treat hemochroma-tosis. From there, Sendamarai said it would be ...

UF researchers develop improved gene therapy agent

... to occur, he said. It was very simple. You can buy a kit from a company and can mutate any amino acid you want. Tyrosine is found at seven spots on the surface of AAV, Srivastava said. The scientists created seven new vectors, replacing a different tyrosine in each one and inserting in them ...

65-million-year-old asteroid impact triggered a global hail of carbon beads

... could have been created by a new process, the violent pulverization of the Earth's carbon-rich crust. Geologists do believe the Earth burned in spots as molten rock and super-hot ash fell out of the sky and onto flammable plant matter. But the charcoal-ized products of these fires only appear in ...