spots

Priming embryonic stem cells to fulfill their promise

...rised primarilyof just five proteins. They applied spots of all 32 possiblecombinations of the five proteins as engineered niches onto the surfaceof gel-coated slides, and then added mouse embryonic stem cells to theniches. After the cells were allowed to grow, the researchers assayedtheir progression into...

New Clues Add 40,000 Years to Age of Human Species

...map, and the team was unable to pinpoint the exact spots that had yielded the original fossils. The researchers then came across an unusual resource: unused film footage taken by National Geographic photographers for a never-aired documentary on the original expedition. By matching features such as hil...

New Insights Into HIV Immunity Suggest Alternative Approach to Vaccines

...lled cardiolipin. "It appears the most vulnerable spots on the outer coat protein of HIV, to which the most protective antibodies bind, are the target of autoantibodies that also react with normal human tissues and are normally destroyed by the immune system," Haynes said. Haynes, an AIDS researcher who ...

Protein offers way to stop microscopic parasites in their tracks

... supplies its moving belt with traction by putting spots of an adhesive protein on it. The adhesive protein... pushing the parasite forward. But these adhesive spots have a significant disadvantage in comparison to a chain: if the belt is to continue rotating, the g...

Potential treatments for neurofibromatosis

...s also develop numerous light brown (café-au-lait) spots on the skin, enlargement and deformation of bones and curvature of the spine (scoliosis), and in many instances, learning disorders. Occasionally, tumors may develop in the brain, on cranial nerves, or on the spinal cord. However, a rare form of the...

Computational Method Speeds Mapping of Cell Signaling Networks

... increase in the amount of the molecules indicated spots where they were most active. Information about the simultaneous activities of several signaling molecules in thousands of individual cells was analyzed using a powerful computational method called Bayesian network modeling. Bayesian analysis uses st...

Discovery may lead to better Candidiasis drug

...nown as thrush, a disease characterized by whitish spots and ulcers on the membranes of the mouth, tongue and throat. It affects primarily people with weakened immune systems caused by antibiotics, chemotherapy or by diseases such as AIDS. Thrush also affects many denture wearers. The condition can be tre...

Study: 'homemade' gene expression technology unreliable

...ne can build up hundreds of thousands of different spots on this glass array," Spencer said. But as commercial platforms improved over time, many laboratory or "home-built" platforms have not, he said. "The fruits of the research done on some of the early homemade and early commercial platforms have enter...

Decoding the logic of olfaction

... type of odorant receptor converge at two specific spots in the olfactory bulb, such that individual struct... single odorant does not just stimulate one or two spots in the cortex," said Buck. "Instead it stimulates a very small subset of neurons that are sparsely d...

Genpathway and Baylor College of Medicine Identify New Genes in Breast Cancer

... type of odorant receptor converge at two specific spots in the olfactory bulb, such that individual struct... single odorant does not just stimulate one or two spots in the cortex," said Buck. "Instead it stimulates a very small subset of neurons that are sparsely d...

NYU and MSKCC research provides model for understanding chemically induced cancer initiation

...ing the effects of methylation at p53 mutation hot spots on the properties of carcinogen-DNA lesions. Current thinking in the field of chemical carcinogenesis is that the mutation-prone, or error-free processing of such carcinogen-damaged p53 genes by DNA repair proteins and DNA and RNA polymerases can det...

Brain May Be Less Plastic Than Hoped

...w that, in adult animals, neurons “filled in?blank spots in the motor and visual cortex after these areas f...of four monkeys with a laser, creating small blind spots on the same sides of the field of vision. The retina sends signals that the brain interprets as ligh...

Sugar beet virus mutation requires Texas touch

...h for help. They would see rhizomania in isolated spots in a few fields, but within a few years, it would spread across entire production areas, Rush said. His team responded by studying the ecological and epidemiological aspects of the pathogen and disease ?what could producers do to reduce the incidence...

Leprosy genome tells story of human migrations, French researchers report in Science

...specific spot in the genome. They found only three spots where useful SNPs occurred. "Finding so few SNPs is pretty unusual. It's the least number of SNPs I'm aware of in any bacterium," Cole said. At each of the three SNP locations, one of four different nucleotides can be substituted, making for a poss...

Life detection instrument passes key test on road to Mars

... was selected by NASA scientists as one of the key spots to test instruments destined for Mars, primarily because of its oxidizing, acidic soil, which is similar to the rusty red oxidized iron surface of Mars. Skelley and colleagues Pascale Ehrenfreund, professor of astrochemistry at Leiden University in T...

Woods Hole Research Center plans controlled burn in Amazon rainforest

...erature and humidity will be monitored at multiple spots in each forest pre- and post- burn, to detect changes in the microclimate of the forest; and soil moisture will be measured at set points in the parcels at regular intervals, to see how the changes in canopy may effect the water available in the soil...

Sugar helps control cell division

...eems to compete with phosphate groups for the same spots on proteins. Hart suggests that a particular balance between O-GlcNAc and phosphates on proteins may help fine-tune their activities. The researchers' next steps are to examine select proteins modified by O-GlcNAc and found at locations important fo...

Study uncovers dirty little secret: Soil emissions are much-bigger-than-expected component of air pollution

...ate change. In addition to equatorial Africa, hot spots for soil emissions include the central plains of the United States; southwestern Europe, primarily the Iberian Peninsula; much of India; and the northern plains of Asia, she said. All of those areas are highly agricultural. The new research was publ...

Molecular mechanism of feather formation found

... a uniform ring. Shh then is expressed in specific spots along the ring, giving rise to bumps, seen microscopically as longitudinal stripes demarcating the edges of ridges in the developing barb. "Each barb ridge grows in length by recruiting new cells, which proliferate at the growing base of the feather...

Infectious disease expert warns of spread of Rocky Mountain spotted fever

...on and resembles a pinpoint pattern of pink-to-red spots over the entire body, or parts thereof. The rash is also noticeable on the soles of the feet and palms of the hands, where rashes do not usually appear. At this later stage of infection, antibiotic therapy becomes somewhat less effective. In the CDC...

Study provides insight into cellular defenses against genetic mutation

...at can sabotage natural processes by competing for spots usually held by their full-length counterparts, or by simply not working. In recent years, researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center have revealed the existence of a natural surveillance system that determines which mRNAs pass muste...

Storing carbon to combat global warming may cause other environmental problems, study suggests

...stream flow particularly in these relatively drier spots that are targets for sequestration." Almost all plantation trees are heavy water using evergreen species such as pines and eucalyptus, he added. However, the researchers said adding more of these plantations would also release more moisture into a r...

Bacterial protein mimics host to cripple defenses

...ver, runaway PCD leads to everything from unseemly spots on tomatoes to Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. BTI Scientist and Cornell University Professor of Plant Pathology Gregory Martin studies the interaction of Pseudomonas syringae bacteria with plants to find what determines whether a host succumb...

Seal rookeries could provide a reliable food source for endangered California condors, study finds

...ea lions all the time, then they'll frequent those spots and it will get them off some of the terrestrial sources with lead poisoning," Chamberlain concludes. "It would be fabulous some day to see condors feeding all along the coast, from Mexico to Canada, the way they did when the Europeans arrived here t...

Mapping alcohol brain damage

...microarray computer produces about 50,000 coloured spots showing which genes are expressed or switched on in the sample. "What we're trying to find out is, what's different in the superior frontal cortex [front of brain] when you compare alcoholics with controls, that's not different in a spared area of ...

New U. of Colorado at Boulder flu chip may help combat future epidemics, pandemics

..." robotically in an array, where each row of three spots contains a specific sequence of "capture" DNA. Each spot is approximately one-hundredth of an inch in diameter. The microarray is then immersed in a wash of influenza gene fragments obtained from the fluid of an infected individual. RNA fragments...

'Computer-chemistry' yields new insight into a puzzle of cell division

...olecular surfaces. Only when active sites and hot spots fit correctly can this brief docking accomplish it... phosphatase and the other on the kinase. Both hot spots are located some distance from the molecules' active sites, Rudolph noted. Overexpression of the Cd...

Patterns in genome organization may partially explain how microbial cells work

...ch fluorescent "reporter" markers to predetermined spots on chromosomes have indicated that many bacterial genes tend to be found at specific cellular locations. Patterns are not obvious in the sequences of prokaryotic genomes, which led the team led by Palsson to use signal-processing methods to identify ...

Of mice, men, trees and the global carbon cycle

...bon dioxide given off by plants is one of the weak spots in models of global carbon cycling." To predict how fast atmospheric carbon dioxide will rise in the future, it is important to know all the sources that emit the gas and all the sources that soak it up. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphe...

Nanotechnology may find disease before it starts

...righten the resulting image. One day, those bright spots may indicate that a few cells in the area may be on the verge of mutating and growing out of control. "The long-term goal is to use this technology to improve our ability to identify very early cancers and other diseases," said Jun Liu, a study co-a...

Attractive birds more immune against bird flu

...g season and that males that unfurl their forehead spots most are those that produce the most antibodies. The findings not only enhance our understanding of why animals behave and look the way they do but also help explain why animals that choose their own mates produce healthier offspring than animals w...

'Genetic network' guards against lethal DNA damage

... this case is a microarray: a grid of thousands of spots on a piece of glass that holds a unique "sensor" strand of DNA that matches one of the barcodes. Machines then read the microarray to identify which of the sensors found matching barcodes that identified specific yeast cells with specific mutations. ...

Study reveals classic symbiotic relationship between ants, bacteria

...cs they produce. He made a key insight that white spots on the ants, which were previously dismissed as "waxy blooms," were actually colonies of bacteria. In the latest phase of his research, Currie, who began this study when he was at the University of Kansas, and his team removed the external blooms of...

Science finds new fix for UV-damaged skin in arthritis treatment

...he amount and appearance of hyperpigmentation, age spots and uneven melanin distribution. Researchers paire...re and more melanin ?which eventually leads to age spots and uneven discoloration. Additionally, as skin ages, cell turnover slows down and melanin "dust" ?m...

New human retrovirus originated in mice

...iruses. The oligonucleotides are deposited as tiny spots on a small glass chip. To detect viruses from tis...equences on the chip. The telltale fluorescence on spots on the chip signaled the presence of viral genetic material in the sample. Although the Virochip co...

Protein connections: A network to understand disease

...ntified as common partners." "In this network are spots where many proteins interact," she said. "These are key proteins." These proteins, she said, could be extremely important in insuring normal neuronal function. "When you step back, you realize this is applicable to any human disease," she said. "...

Snakes' virtual glasses, leopard spots and all-optical transistors

...link.aps.org/abstract/PRE/v74/e011914 Leopard's spots and Zebra's stripes inspired the ancient myths fam...uars as the animals age. Both felines sport simple spots when they are kittens. By the time they're adults, Jaguar's spots have turned to polygons, while Leo...

St. Jude finds clues to hearing loss from chemotherapy

...s mating carried mutations in one or more specific spots in their DNA, Zuo explained. The random mutations caused a variety of disruptions of normal functions. However, only some of the mutations were likely to cause hearing loss, and it was not known which mutation each mouse had. Therefore, the St. Jude ...

Unraveling where chimp and human brains diverge

...from DNA microarrays ?vast collections of tiny DNA spots -- to map the activity of virtually every gene in the genome simultaneously. By comparing gene activity in different areas of the brain, the team identified gene networks that correlated to specific brain regions. Then they compared the strength of...

Embryonic patterning makes the feathers fly

...the difference between having feathers arranged in spots or stripes. For biologists at the University of Southern California and mathematicians at Oxford University in the UK, it’s all a question of patterning. To understand patterning on the molecular and the systems level, the researchers looked at ho...

Siberian lakes burp 'time-bomb' greenhouse gas

...ped in the ice. By placing bubble traps over these spots and under the water the researchers could get daily measurements of the volume of methane released by the bubbles. Walter will continue her work on methane for her UAF International Polar Year post-doctoral project which will provide the first circu...

Mapping the mouse genome

...uences previously found in human recombination hot spots were also common in mouse genome jungles. They found one motif, CCTCCCT, corresponding to mouse jungles and deserts was conserved among rats, dogs, and chimpanzees, as well as humans. This new, improved mouse genetic map has already yielded valuab...

Gene-bender proteins may sway to DNA

...of regulating gene expression by clasping onto key spots of DNA -- the nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions. How does the protein recognize a particular binding site" Structural changes in both the protein and DNA, sometimes with the DNA within the complex kinked or sharply bent, allow for ...

UF scientists discover new genus of frogmouth bird in Solomon Islands

...re uniform. Its speckles are larger, and the white spots on its breast and underbelly are more pronounced than on other frogmouths. Two other genera of frogmouths exist: one in southeast Asia and the other in Australia and New Guinea. The Solomon Islands Frogmouth is known to inhabit three islands: Isa...

New species declared: Clouded leopard on Borneo and Sumatra

...d species, has small cloud markings, many distinct spots within the cloud markings, grayer fur, and a doubl...arge clouds on their skin with fewer, often faint, spots within the cloud markings, and they are lighter in color, with a tendency toward tawny-colored fur a...

Trusting your instincts leads you to the right answer

...or not. So while the lower-level cognitive process spots the rotated image as the odd one out, the higher-level function overrides that decision and dismisses the rotated object because it is the same as all the other symbols. When subjects were given the time to engage their higher-level functions, their ...

'Guardian of the genome' protein found to underlie skin tanning

...ong the elderly, is the development of small, dark spots that are unrelated to sun exposure. The spots arise when groups of cells begin producing pigment in response to repeated stress or irritation of t...

Mutating the entire genome

...o insert pieces of loxP DNA randomly into numerous spots on the mouse genome. So scientists easily can breed multiple generations of mice with loxP surrounding various large stretches of DNA. Then the first part of the new method is used: The mice are bred with mice that carry the Cre gene so any large...