Tag: "close" at biology news

Modeling the restless brain

...rtment of Psychological and Brain Sciences, took a close look at the spontaneous activity of the brain at rest. With their computational approach -- which involved creating a large-scale computer model of the brain of a macaque monkey -- they demonstrated that the shape and pattern of the fluctuations are ...

A new plant-bacterial symbiotic mechanism promising for crop applications

... termed nodules, where they continue to live. This close relationship is symbiosis, which benefits both organisms involved: the plant supplies nutritive elements to the bacteria which in return pass on the nitrogen they have stored up. These interactions improve crop yields of leguminous plants that are c...

Caribbean frogs started with a single, ancient voyage on a raft from South America

... Caribbean terrestrial frogs and because groups of close relatives rarely dominate the fauna of an entire continent or major geographic region," explained Penn State's Blair Hedges, the evolutionary biologist and professor of biology who directed the research. "Because land connections among continents ha...

New bacterium discovered -- related to cause of trench fever

A close cousin of the bacterium that debilitated thousands of World War I soldiers has been isolated at UCSF from a patient who had been on an international vacation. The woman, who has since recovered, suffered from symptoms similar to malaria or typhoid fe...

Brightening prospects of using fluorescent nanotubes in medical applications

...100 better than previous ensemble measurements and close to the best quantum efficiencies reported for individual nanotubes. The methods researchers use to produce nanotubes creates soot that contains a number of different types of nanotubes: metallic, semiconducting, double-walled, single-walled, etc. O...

Migration alert -- How tumor cells home in on the lymphatic system

...gh concentrations of this molecule, so if they are close enough to the lymphatic to sense the molecule, they will migrate towards the vessel. Swartz’s group showed that tumor cells secrete this same molecule. Since lymphatics drain fluid, there will always be slow fluid flow going away from the tumor into ...

Physicist cracks women's random but always lucky choice of X chromosome

...ent in this process both X chromosomes are brought close together within the cell. The Warwick researcher paper says that what happens next is that material for a "protein plug" then begins to gather around both of the XIST suicide genes on each X Chromosome. This starts a race between the two build ups of...

Researchers discover 'acquired' DNA key to certain bacterial infection

... host,” Bermudez said. “In fact, its efficiency is close to zero. But with this ‘island’ of acquired genetic material, the bacterium finds a way to get inside the cells and it takes control, not the phagocyte.” Phagocytes are cells that engulf and digest pathogens and cellular debris, and in humans serv...

3-D ultrasound scanner provides in-depth view of the brain

...ce with special surgical tools that can be used in close proximity to the imagers' powerful magnets. Last year, the Duke team, led by biomedical engineering Professor Stephen Smith, reported the development of a 3-D ultrasound device designed for imaging the heart and other internal organs during endosc...

Surprising origin of cell's internal highways

...these structures. "The Golgi apparatus is very close to the centrosome," said Kaverina. "So if you're n...sh between the centrosome and Golgi." To get a close look, Kaverina and colleagues tagged the growing ("plus") ends of microtubules in human retinal epit...

Experts predict Tamiflu could halve the pandemic influenza death toll versus no intervention

...ll allow them to provide Tamiflu preventatively to close contacts of infected individuals. The disease modelling research analysed for the first time the cost-effectiveness of strategies to reduce the spread of pandemic influenza using Tamiflu prophylactically. It was predicted that this preventative ap...

Antarctic icebergs -- Hotspots of ocean life

... into the depths. Despite the risks of getting close to these mountains of ice – which can shed huge pi...d their growing numbers -- the researchers counted close to 1,000 in satellite images of some 4,300 square miles of ocean -- the scientists estimate that ove...

'Nurse cells' make life and death decisions for infection-fighting cells

...nurse cells were given their name because of their close relationship with thymocytes. These nurse cells have been reported to take up as many as 50 destined-to-die thymocytes into their own cell bodies. Thymic nurse cells were discovered in 1980. Their existence was debated because many scientists foun...

Mule deer moms rescue other fawns

...e perceived attackers. Whitetail mothers that came close to the speaker tended to withdraw right away and then stayed safely outside that distance. The behaviour of mule deer defies traditional explanations that parental care, kin selection or reciprocity play a part in the defence of fawns other than t...

Hearts of male and female rainbow trout are different

...on in adult humans. A new research study begins to close the gender gap in fishes, and finds that sex differences in cardiac performance and metabolism exist in rainbow trout. These differences occur at a young age and are only realized when the trout heart is contracting and not under resting conditions. ...

Master regulatory gene of epithelial stem cells identified

...thelial stem cells turns out to be the p63 gene, a close relative to the well-known tumor-suppressing p53 gene. Without p63, mutant mice run out of the regenerative epithelial stem cells. The findings also have implications for cancers of the skin, breast and prostate, which are among the most common huma...

Traumas like Sept. 11 make brains more reactive to fear

...n study, even people who seemed resilient but were close to the World Trade Center when the twin towers top...he amygdalae were most sensitive in those who were close to the World Trade Center. These individuals tended to still experience lingering symptoms that were...

Diminishing dinosaur steps saved by laser and laptop

... is so delicate that experts cannot get physically close enough to the tracks to examine them. In the years since the tracks were discovered they have been exposed to the elements, and as a result are severely weathered and eroding at a rapid rate. To make things even more difficult, the tracks are imp...

Survival of the rarest: Fruit flies shed light on the evolution of behavior

...use you're not competing with the sitters who stay close to the initial resource. On the other hand, if you're a sitter and you're mostly with rovers, the rovers are going to move out and you'll be left on the patch to feed without competition." More generally, Fitzpatrick says these results may help ex...

The quest for an effective HIV vaccine presents new possibilities, challenges

...opportunity to prevent long-term HIV infection may close permanently once a pool of latently infected cells is in place, Drs. Johnston and Fauci note. Neutralizing antibodies, which can attach to and eliminate free virus, only appear after HIV levels have declined substantially. Further, the effectiveness ...

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