explains 2 9

Tag: "explains" at biology news

Team discovers possible 'universal strategy' to combat addiction

...Vanderbilt University in Tennessee on the project, explains that VTA brain cells are sensitive to serotonin, a hormone associated with learning, sleep and mood. The team discovered that PTEN acts on these serotonin receptors, increasing brain cell activity. This is the same "reward" process sparked by drugs o...

Neuroscientists discover new cell type that may help brain maintain memories of smells

.... It is this specific pattern of connections that explains how Blanes cells can have such a disproportionately large impact in the olfactory system. Discovering how one brain cell talks with another brain cell remains one of the most important but technically challenging questions in neuroscience. The Case...

U-M scientists identify major psoriasis susceptibility gene

...gger from the environment to develop the disease," explains Elder. "In psoriasis, strep throat is a very common initial trigger. It activates the immune system to attack the strep bacteria. But once the strep infection is cleared, the immune system starts attacking the patient's own skin cells. About half th...

Deep-rooted plants have much greater impact on climate than experts thought

... increased transpiration by trees in June and July explains the drop in temperature in the Amazon." This effect changes the way the atmosphere heats and cools, and will change the way rain is distributed, he noted. Depending on the extent to which trees elsewhere in the world, especially in Africa and other ...

Key heart and Alzheimer's disease protein imaged for first time in native state

...eveal the structure of a protein bound to lipids," explains senior author Karl Weisgraber, PhD, a senior investigator at both GICD and the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease (GIND). "It's crucial to understand this molecule, since it plays such a pivotal role in both cardiovascular and neurological ...

Sex: It's costly but worth it. Just ask a microbe

...racting the other than nourishing its own growth," explains Xu. "Transmitting mating signals costs both partners: one partner uses up materials and energy to produce and transmit the signal, and the other partner gets distracted by the mating signal and loses interest in reproducing on its own." The irony is...

AIDS drug from sunflowers

...irus from reproducing, at least in cell cultures,' explains Claudio Cerboncini, who is now working at the caesar research centre. 'It is one of the few substances known today which inhibit viral integrase ?this is an enzyme which is essential if the pathogen is to reproduce.' In contrast to other enzymes medi...

Mayo Clinic researchers challenge sepsis theory

...ndrome, rather than the introduction of a poison," explains Dr. Platt. "The importance then becomes clear. If we really do now have the first cause of sepsis -- not the bacteria, but the unconstrained receptors -- then we can therapeutically interfere with that receptor release mechanism by designing new trea...

Salk researchers make fast strides towards understanding how our body controls walking

... functions without any input from the brain, which explains why headless chickens run away from the butcher's block. "Although people have known about the CPG for a long time, they haven't been able to identify the nerve cells that are part of these circuits. Even at closer inspection, the spinal cord is ju...

Genome changes tracked during multiple myeloma initiation, progression and treatment

...ation for MM in particular and cancer in general," explains Dr. DePinho. The researchers suggest that on a broader scale in relation to the human cancer genome project, their results will serve to direct costly sequencing efforts toward those specific regions that contain genes displaying high pathogenic rele...

Jefferson researchers building a better rabies vaccine

...to this protein can be effective. Dr. Dietzschold explains that the current wildlife rabies vaccine used in the United States is ineffective in a chief carrier: skunks. The vaccine developed by his team is much broader, showing efficacy in such animals as raccoon, skunk and mongoose. One of the problems with...

Where 'jumping genes' fear to tread

... current paradigms of transcriptional regulation," explains Mattick. "It appears that TFRs might be the passive signatures of one or more poorly understood mechanisms of gene regulation that operate in higher organisms, suggesting a wider role for noncoding sequences than has hitherto been appreciated." The...

New weapon in battle against osteoporosis

...w two types of cannabinoidreceptors, CB1 and CB2," explains Dr. Karsak. "The CB1 receptor is formed by nerve c...o diminish the bone loss caused by ovary removal," explains the molecular biologist. Many patients carry a particular variant of the CB2 gene But how far ...

Amber reveals ecology of 30 million year old spiders

...lexity of Baltic compared to Dominican amber trees explains the presence of larger web-spinners. The Dominican trees are long, thin and smooth whereas the Baltic trees are wide and bushy, providing a much better environment for web-spinners to prosper," says Dr Penney. The study demonstrates for the first ti...

Fish on acid: Hagfish cope with high levels of CO2

...n any marine or fresh water fish studied to date", explains Baker. Just as cold-blooded animals have an equal body temperature to their surrounding environment, the Hagfish has the same concentration of salt in its blood as the surrounding seawater. This trait previously led scientists to believe that these ...

Northern birds are fatter!

...d and which sites are prioritised for protection", explains Williams. Two techniques were used to study Western Sandpipers on their spring journey along the Pacific 'Flyway' from Mexico to Alaska: 80 birds were fitted with radio-telemetry tracking devices and a further 400 had blood samples taken to give me...

How low can you go? Ants learn to limbo

...heir body enough to crawl under without stopping", explains Tobias Seidl, "When the barrier was made invisible to them, they had to use their antennae to examine it". The researchers motivated the ants to run back and forth by placing biscuit crumbs flavoured with melon and tuna at one end of a channel. They...

Mayo Clinic researchers discover cancer cells may move via wave stimulation

...ngs as cell growth, cell movement and metastasis," explains Mark McNiven, Ph.D., the lead researcher on the Mayo Clinic team. "Our work provides new insights into a novel mechanism by which cells can internalize growth factor information. Understanding this process is the first step toward one day halting it,...

New fruit fly protein illuminates circadian response to light

...associates the absence of TIM with daytime hours," explains Sehgal. The mutated JET protein reduces the light-dependent degradation of TIM and the circadian response to light. Sehgal and others were able to reverse the behaviors in the jetlag flies by genetically replacing the mutated gene sequence with the ...

Major obesity gene is 'lost in the shuffle'

...abundant in primate genomes, called Alu elements," explains Nakayama. "We located one copy of a specific Alu element on either side of the ASIP gene. Our study shows that during the evolution of gibbons, these Alu elements lined up and recombined with each other, erasing approximately 100 kilobases of DNA...

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