Tag: "harbors" at biology news

Dinosaur hearing, listening to muscle noise, quieter cubicles

... PORTS AND HARBORS Acoustics can make ports and harbors more secure. Karim Sabra of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography ( ksabra@mpl.ucsd.edu ) will present encouraging proof-of-concept measurements of an "acoustic tripwire" surveillance system for detecting intruders in harbor entrances. Their tech...

Study shows isolation of stem cells may lead to a treatment for hearing loss

...ogenitors. This led us to hypothesize that cochlea harbors stem cells and neural precursor cells. Our work in collaboration with Miller’s lab supports our hypothesis?Dr. Alagramam said. They say that in early life, these precursor cells may be able to regenerate hair cells, but their capacity to do so become...

How appetite-stimulating brain cells work overtime during fasting

...scientists did know that that portion of the brain harbors thyroid hormone receptors and has the capacity for local production of T3. Now, the researchers found that support cells in the hypothalamus producing an enzyme that catalyzes active thyroid hormone production are side by side with appetite-stimul...

Studies yield insight into the numerical brain

...erently in processing numbers. While the left lobe harbors abstract numerical representations, the right shows a dependence on the notation used for a number, they found. The researchers concluded that "results challenge the commonly held belief that numbers are represented solely in an abstract way in the h...

Transmission of antibiotic-resistant bacteria linked to previous intensive care unit room occupants

...ay be more directly linked to a prior occupant who harbors a resistant organism rather than to a particular room," the authors write. Susan S. Huang, M.D., M.P.H., Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, and colleagues conducted a 20-month study of 8,203 patients who had 11,528 st...

Ocean seep mollusks may share evolutionary history with other deep-sea creatures

...Cold seeps may have been--and continue to be--safe harbors for the mollusks, protecting them from mass extinctions and possible abrupt oxygen changes in the seas, the researchers found. However, many deep-sea species outside of the cold seeps have also managed to ride out these changes. "The shallow water ...

Study illuminates how the plague bacteria causes disease

...resistance. In the case of Yersinia, the plasmid harbors numerous genes, including a large number that contribute to the ability of diverse pathogens to deliver virulence factors into host cells. One of these genes is YpkA, a protein with multiple domains, including one closely related to an enzyme, a type...

Buildup of damaged DNA in cells drives aging

...moval of DNA damage. The XPF portion of the enzyme harbors the DNA-cutting activity; whereas a second portion, known as ERCC1, is essential for the enzyme to bind to the damaged DNA. Mutations in either XPF or ERCC1 lead to reduced activity of this key DNA repair enzyme. "We were completely surprised by t...

Study reveals classic symbiotic relationship between ants, bacteria

...ially adapted to the type of bacteria each species harbors - evidence that the ants are capable of rapidly changing to maintain their bacterial residents. "These two species of ants are very difficult to differentiate other than through molecular analysis," says Currie. "There are almost no morphological, ...

Utah researchers confirm chromosome may harbor autism gene

...rmed that a region on a single chromosome probably harbors a gene that causes autism. The researchers at the U School of Medicine made the finding by tracing variations in the DNA of an extended Utah family that has a high occurrence of the disorder and whose members are descended from one couple. As part o...

Birds that make teeth

...esearchers show that the talpid2 strain of chicken harbors a genetic change that permits tooth formation in both the upper and lower jaw of embryonic birds. These teeth show similar developmental position as mammalian teeth and are associated with similar molecular instructions. Furthermore, when comparing t...

Plants, too, have ways to manage freeloaders

...d. In a study of a coastal California lupine that harbors nitrogen-fixing bacteria in its roots, UC Berkeley researchers have shown that the roots respond differently to bacteria that efficiently produce nitrogen than they do to the slackers. Root nodules - in which bacteria share nitrogen with the plant in...

Engineered Stem Cells Show Promise For Sneaking Drugs Into The Brain

... the substantia niagra, the part of the brain that harbors the cells that produce dopamine. "In Parkinson's, the striatum loses fibers," Svendsen explains. But cells in the striatum exposed to GDNF in the Wisconsin study showed an ability to recover and sprout new fibers. "It actually seems to work better ...

Complex gene interactions account for autism risk

...rtion of chromosome 15 to autism risk. That region harbors genes that code for three GABA receptors. Since one of the primary functions of GABA is to inhibit nerve cells from firing, it plays a key role in telling the body to "slow down.". The GABA system therefore acts as a sort of information filter, prev...

Device traps, disables harmful bacteria

...ols, many bioaerosols researchers believe, creates harbors that enhance the aerosolization of microorganisms, including strains of Legionella and Mycobacterium, that can cause diseases such as "lifeguard lung." "The results of this study suggest that a reasonable reduction in bioaerosol concentrations can b...

A virus-like hitchhiker may trigger bacterial meningitis

...ks of life-threatening meningitis. The human body harbors many harmless bacterial residents, known as commensals. One such bacterium, called Neisseria meningitidis, makes its home in the upper respiratory tract, usually without consequence. But certain strains of N. meningitidis -- known as 'hyperinvasive' ...

Touching Molecules With Your Bare Hands

...aintenance protein produced by EBV, called EBNA-1, harbors an amino acid element in its epitope—the region that binds to a T cell and triggers an immune response—that helps the viral protein evade the killer T cells that could destroy it. Lab studies show that the amino acid element limits EBNA-1’s interacti...

How A Latent Virus Eludes Immune Defenses

...aintenance protein produced by EBV, called EBNA-1, harbors an amino acid element in its epitope—the region that binds to a T cell and triggers an immune response—that helps the viral protein evade the killer T cells that could destroy it. Lab studies show that the amino acid element limits EBNA-1’s interacti...

Distributed Basic Local Alignment Search Toolkit (W.ND-BLAST)

...ecognized as a source of many of these infections, harbors pathogenic microorganisms that can pose a significant health threat to patients, especially those with weakened immune systems. By all accounts the prevalence of infections caused by some of the most potentially lethal waterborne microbes, such as le...

New strategies to reduce hospital-aquired infections

...ecognized as a source of many of these infections, harbors pathogenic microorganisms that can pose a significant health threat to patients, especially those with weakened immune systems. By all accounts the prevalence of infections caused by some of the most potentially lethal waterborne microbes, such as le...

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