Tag: "spark" at biology news

Researchers learn what sparks plant growth

... study is needed to determine all of the cues that spark the intimate dialogue between the cells of the epidermis and the inner cells of the shoot. "Our study says that the major target tissue in the shoot for steroid hormones is the epidermis. Our results also show that these hormones act locally. As s...

Imaging pinpoints brain regions that 'see the future'

...such as anticipation, planning and monitoring, the spark for these activities may well be the very process of envisioning oneself in a specific future event, an activity based within and reliant upon the same neurally distributed network used to retrieve autobiographical memories. Second, within this n...

'Marathon mice' elucidate little-known muscle type

...racteristics by driving the activity of genes that spark proliferation of mitochondria. The PGC-1â animals with more IIX muscle fibers showed a greater capacity for aerobic exercise, they found. Transgenic mice were able to run, on average, for 32.5 min to exhaustion, compared to 26 min for their normal...

Bacteria research offers hope for new vaccine against meningococci

...ial meningitis, as the disease is called, can even spark epidemics: in Africa 250,000 people were affected in a matter of weeks in the late 1990s. Without treatment, mortality among those who contract the disease is 85-90 percent, with treatment some 10-15 percent. Patients also run a high risk of seriou...

A reason why video games are hard to give up

... the underlying motives and satisfactions that can spark players' interests and sustain them during play. Revenues from video games--even before the latest Wii, PlayStation 3, and Xbox systems emerged--surpass the money made from Hollywood films annually. A range of demographic groups plays video gam...

Molecular mechanism may explain how fevers spark seizures

...porary discomfort, but in some small children they spark convulsions called "febrile seizures." These convulsions are "scary and very upsetting to parents," said Robert L. Macdonald, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of Neurology. They've also been something of an enigma, he said. The epilepsy research co...

Wisconsin scientists find a way to make human collagen in the lab

...are now used but that can also harbor pathogens or spark undesirable immune responses. What's more, the new work may also lay the foundation for applications in nanotechnology -- such as microscopic sensors that could be implanted in humans to confront the effects of disease -- because it gives scientists ...

Ernst Mayr's theory illustrated in genetic epidemiology studies

...t will interact with natural selection strongly to spark new directions of evolutionary change." The other thing detractors object to is the random aspect of evolutionary change. "Those uncomfortable with Mayr's theory don't take into account that under his model, it's the interaction of the random that ...

Ocean 'dead zones' trigger sex changes in fish, posing extinction threat

...aused by agricultural run-off and pollution, could spark the development of far more male fish than female, thereby threatening some species with extinction, according to a study published today on the Web site of the American Chemical Society journal, Environmental Science & Technology . The study is...

Scientists observe how a close bond activates the immune system

...formation between immune cells that is required to spark a body wide response to infection. "This is the first time that anyone has been able to physically manipulate the immunological synapse and measure the effect on T cell signaling," says Michael L. Dustin, Ph.D., the Irene Diamond Associate Profess...

Researchers find how some antibiotics kill bacteria

...A polymerase. "Removing this ion is like removing spark plugs from an engine," Artsimovitch said. "The car may look fine, but it won't run. "Until we could look under polymerase's molecular 'hood' we couldn't see what the problem was," she said. "We never suspected that removing this ion was what killed ...

New insights into how Huntington's disease attacks the brain

...oring cells then interact with the target cells to spark disease." To pinpoint the disorder's cellular origin, UCLA researchers developed two sets of mice with the human HD gene mutation. The first group was engineered to trigger production of the mutant HD protein throughout the brain. The second set of ...

Fat's fate depends on its source

...in directly from the diet or generated from sugars spark a cascade of gene activity in the liver necessary for healthy blood levels of sugar, cholesterol, and other fats, according to the researchers. Old fat stores alone failed to set those critical metabolic pathways in motion, they found. The findings ...

Breakthrough isolating embryo-quality stem cells from blood

...e source, such as voluntary adult donations, could spark a boom in new cures. Scientists have known for some time that stem cells exist in adult human blood and certain other tissues. However the only reliable way to separate them involved marking the cells with a chemical dye, rendering them useless for ...

Medical whistleblowers speak out

... Lenzer's account: "Lenzer's report will, we hope, spark discussion and debate about how American medicine - clinicians, researchers, regulatory agencies, and medical journals - can disentangle itself from the influence of the pharmaceutical industry." ...

Researchers reveal the infectious impact of salmon farms on wild salmon

...lmon, but other fish such as herring which are the spark plugs of the entire ecosystems ?everything depends on them ?from salmon to whales to seabirds. Every commercially important fish is either directly or indirectly dependent on herring." "Previous studies have been dismissed by industry, but past stud...

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