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Tag: "american" at biology news

First North American Encapsulated Islet Transplant without Long-term Immune Suppression into a Patient with Type 1 Diabetes

Biologists at the University of Liverpool have discovered how the plagues of the Middle Ages have made around 10% of Europeans resistant to HIV. Scientists have known for some time that these individuals carry a genetic mutation (known as CCR5-delta32) that prevents the virus from entering the cells of the immune system but have been unable to account for the high levels of the gene in Scandinavi...

Health costs soar as 60 million Americans classed as obese

A new method for manipulating macromolecules has been developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The technique uses double-stranded DNA to direct the behavior of other molecules. .. In previous DNA nanotechnology efforts, duplex DNA has been used as a static lattice to construct geometrical objects in three dimensions. Instead of manipulating DNA alone into such s...

Discovery of an American salamander where it shouldn't be: Korea

Imagine discovering pandas in California or kangaroos in Argentina. .. . "I've discovered and named nearly 50 species of salamanders - more than 10 percent of the total in the world. I've discovered new genera in Guatemala and Cost Rica. But this...

DNA traces evolution of extinct sabertooths and the American cheetah-like cat

By performing sequence analysis of ancient DNA, a team of researchers has obtained data that help clarify our view of the evolutionary relationships shared by the large predatory cats that once roamed the prehistoric New World. . .. Toward the end of the last Ice Age, around 13,000 years ago, North and South America were home to a variety of large cats such as the sabertooths (Smilodon and Homoth...

North & South American researchers find architectural abnormalities in T. cruzi ribosome

A Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator from Albany, New York, and an HHMI international research scholar from Buenos Aires, Argentina have combined their expertise to identify two peculiar features of the protein-making machinery of the parasite that causes Chagas disease. Their findings could help scientists develop a safe and effective drug for the disease, whose cardiac complications k...

T-rays: New imaging technology spotlighted by American Chemical Society

T-ray sensing and imaging technology, which can spot cracks in space shuttle foam, see biological agents through a sealed envelope and detect tumors without harmful radiation, was the focus of a recent symposium at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society. . at Yale, and Xi-Cheng Zhang, professor and director of the Center for Terahertz Research at Rensselaer Polytechnic Ins...

New peptide antibiotic isolated from American oyster

North Carolina Sea Grant researchers have isolated a new peptide antibiotic from the American oyster that may have implications for managing many diseases in oysters. . .. "This peptide may be helpful in selecting disease-resistant oysters for aquaculture and fisheries and may also allow for the development of a test to monitor oyster health," says Ed Noga, pro...

Computers to save unique type of American red squirrel

UK expertise is being exported to North America to help prevent a unique type of red squirrel dying out in as little as 30 years time. . .. .. The Mount Graham Red Squirrel, isolated for the last 10,000 years in a small area of coniferous forest on a mou...

Alcoholism, smoking and genetics among Plains American Indians

Alcoholism and smoking have a high rate of co-occurrence in the general population. Yet little is known about the co-morbidity of alcoholism and smoking among American Indians. In the March issue of . "The shared heritability between smoking and alcoholism, particularly in heavy smokers and heavy drinkers, i...

Gene variation increases SIDS risk in African Americans

About five percent of deaths from SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) in African Americans can be traced to defects in one gene and half of those deaths result from a common genetic variation that increases an infant's risk of developing an abnormal heart rhythm during times of environmental stress, a research team based at the University of Chicago reports in the February 2006 issue of the Journ...

Americans support free access to research

In an online survey of public attitudes conducted recently and released today by Harris Interactive®, 8 out of 10 (82%) adults polled said they believe that "if tax dollars pay for scientific research, people should have free access to the results of the research on the Internet." . .. These findings from the Harris Poll, one of the longest running independent opinion polls in the United States,...

New HIV statistics indicate increasing toll of AIDS on African American community

The country's leading African-American lawmakers, civil rights leaders and medical experts today called on the federal government to adopt and implement a new blueprint to address the HIV/AIDS crisis in the African-American community. The plan is outlined in a new report, African-Americans, Health Disparities and HIV/AIDS: Recommendations for Confronting the Epidemic in Black America, written by...

American scientist's research of life's first cells

For her research of life's first cells, Irene Chen, a regional winner from North America and the Grand Prize winner, today was named to receive the $25,000 GE & Science Prize for Young Life Scientists, supported by GE Healthcare and the journal . Chen will receive her award in Stockholm, Sweden, on Monday, 11 December, during an award ceremony. She will also meet with Nobel Prize winners An...

Mummy's amazing American maize

The far-reaching influence of Spanish and Portuguese colonisers appears not to have extended to South American agriculture, scientists studying a 1,400-year-old Andean mummy have found. . .. Surprisingly, they found both ancient and modern samples of the crop were genetically almost identical indicating that modern European influence has not been as great as previously thought. ...

Iowa State University botanists identify new species of North American bamboo

Two Iowa State University botanists and their colleague at the University of North Carolina have discovered a new species of North American bamboo in the hills of Appalachia. It is the third known native species of the hardy grass. The other two were discovered more than 200 years ago. . Lynn Clark, Iowa State professor of ecology, evolution and organismal biology, and Ph.D. student Jimmy Tripl...