Tag: "rare" at biology news

Researchers find 24 species believed new to science in Suriname rainforest

...na, French Guiana and northern Brazil, including a rare armored catfish, Harttiella crassicauda, feared extinct because gold mining activities had contaminated a creek where it was last seen more than 50 years ago. Overall, the survey recorded 467 species at the two sites, including large cats such as ...

Simulations unravel outer membrane transport mechanism

... take up large molecules. Their findings provide a rare window on the complex interplay of proteins involved in the active transport of materials across cell membranes. Their study, which includes a collaborator from the University of Virginia, appears online in the Biophysical Journal and was described ...

A new plant-bacterial symbiotic mechanism promising for crop applications

...s special character confers on it the exceptional, rare ability to form nodules on the stems of its host-plant. The plant thus acquires the possibility of fixing much higher quantities of nitrogen than those usually measured in leguminous plants which have nodules only on their roots. The researchers ...

Undergraduate research shows leaderless honeybee organizing

...s mentor. Pierce was first author on the paper – a rare achievement for an undergraduate. “It was a very good work and an impressive achievement for a student researcher – he got a publication as an undergraduate,” Schneider noted. “I really like working with our undergraduate honors students – they a...

Australian wins prestigious prize in biodiversity informatics

...tions that similar developments lack, and he has a rare mix of skill sets." The Prize winner also works on making desktop software tools into web-based tools that can be shared across the Internet. Sharing analytical software in this way promotes collaboration and cooperation among scientists and betwee...

454 sequencing identifies HIV drug resistance at early stage

...uencer™ system to identify previously undetectable rare drug resistant HIV variants in samples from an ear... that accurately enable the sensitive detection of rare mutations” explained Egholm Michael, Ph.D. vice president of research and development at 454 Life Sc...

Cancer stem cells similar to normal stem cells can thwart anti-cancer agents

... samples. The researchers identified a very small, rare set of resting cancer stem cells in the lung cancer samples that looked and behaved much like normal adult lung tissue stem cells. Both the cancer and normal stem cells were protected equally by multiple drug resistance transporters, even if the bulk...

Putting feelings into words produces therapeutic effects in the brain

...n, on the right side of the brain,” he said. “It’s rare to see only one region of the brain responsive to a high-level process like labeling emotions.” Many people are not likely to realize why putting their feelings into words is helpful. “If you ask people who are really sad why they are writing i...

'Smart' mice teach scientists about learning process, brain disorders

...g addiction, the researchers said. "It’s pretty rare that you make mice ‘smarter,’ so there are a lot of cognitive implications," said Dr. James Bibb, assistant professor of psychiatry and the study’s senior author. "Everything is more meaningful to these mice," he said. "The increase in sensitivity...

Ants show us how to make super-highways

...t carrying prey themselves. This study provides rare quantitative evidence from animal societies that extreme specialisation by a minority can significantly improve the performance of a majority to benefit the group as a whole. It also suggests that these benefits are a consequence of the unusual and d...

First confirmed common genetic risk factors for breast cancer

...omen. "Risk mutations within these genes are so rare that only a very small number of breast cancer incidences are caused by these mutations," said Jianjun Liu, Ph.D., co-author of the Nature paper and Senior Research Scientist at the Genome Institute of Singapore, one of the over 20 research instituti...

First clinical trial of gene therapy for childhood blindness

...otentially leading to an effective treatment for a rare but debilitating disease." ...

Risk of lymphoma increases with hepatitis C virus infection

...k of developing Waldenström's macroglobulinemia (a rare type of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma) went up by 300 percent and the risk for cryoglobulinemia, a condition marked by abnormal levels of certain antibodies in the blood, was also elevated for those with HCV infections. The researchers looked at patient re...

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

...eball team. Now, new research suggests that being rare has biological benefits. Professor Marla Sokolowsk...ependent selection." Essentially, it suggests that rare variants have a better chance of survival—just as a rare strain of the flu has a better chance of sp...

Dealing deadly cancers a knockout punch

...ed the tumors in four of five test animals. It is rare to see the virtual elimination of tumours as well as the long-lasting therapeutic effect that was observed in this study. "Combination therapy results for reovirus in animals are particularly encouraging because they suggest that Reolysin can impr...

Palau's coral reefs show differential habitat recovery following the 1998 bleaching event

...event, caused by high sea water temperatures. "The rare piece of good news in the problem of climate change is that good local management practices might aid recovery of coral reefs." Van Woesik, a professor of biological sciences at Florida Institute of Technology, examined the recovery r...

Study warns deep-sea mining may pose serious threat to fragile marine ecosystems

Undersea habitats supporting rare and potentially valuable organisms are at risk from seafloor mining scheduled to begin within this decade, says a new study led by a University of Toronto Mississauga geologist. Mining of massive sulphide deposits near "black smokers"—undersea hydr...

NIH researchers discover protein that appears to regulate bone mass loss, the cause of osteoporosis

... of bone loss based on a study of 14 people with a rare genetic disorder called X-linked Hyper IgM Syndrome. X-linked Hyper IgM Syndrome strikes about one in a million American--all males--and is caused by a deficiency in an important immune system protein known as CD40 ligand. This protein is crucial f...

Sandia researchers take new approach to studying how cells respond to pathogens

...o it should enable us to do some unique studies on rare cell types." Proteins in the cells of interest are tagged with fluorescent molecules, essentially colored dyes. The dyes range from green to red and give researchers the opportunity to track proteins and see, for example, the dynamic cellular prod...

Male-killing bacteria makes female butterflies more promiscuous

...y only rises up to the point where males become so rare that female virginity rates rise. The male-killling phenomenon in this species was first identified in 1920 by Hubert Simmonds but has not received much attention until now. This finding is significant for the scientific community because it demo...

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