Tag: "starved" at biology news

Seafloor creatures destroyed by ice action during ice ages

...e sheets across the Antarctic continental shelf or starved to death as links in the food chain were broken by the permanent ice cover. There would have been no refuge for shallower living animals further down the continental slope, as huge sediment slides would have buried them. Typically these ecosystems wo...

Gene therapy may protect normal tissues during radiation retreatment for lung cancer

...e sheets across the Antarctic continental shelf or starved to death as links in the food chain were broken by the permanent ice cover. There would have been no refuge for shallower living animals further down the continental slope, as huge sediment slides would have buried them. Typically these ecosystems wo...

Stroke treatment a step closer after trial

...blood to the brain become blocked and the brain is starved of oxygen. A core area of the brain dies within minutes but it is the threatened area around this core that the treatment may help to salvage. "The protein targets the molecule that causes inflammation and dramatically reduces the inflammatory marke...

How Fruitflies Know It's Time for Lunch

...ae to either high or low food levels. Because both starved and sugar-fed flies express little hug, the researchers inferred that hug levels do not solely signal internal energy requirements but respond to internal and external signals carrying information about the quality of food. The researchers also noted...

Hopkins researchers discover genetic switch that turns off an oxygen-poor cell's combustion engine

...lecules. At lower oxygen levels, when cells are starved for oxygen - as during exertion or trauma -- the genetic switch that the Hopkins researchers found deliberately shuts off the cell's mitochondrial combustion engine, which scientists had long - and erroneously -- believed ran down on its own due t...

Plants used to detect gas leaks, from outer space!

...l about 8 times that of CO2. When plant roots are starved of oxygen the stress caused to the plant can be quantified from the spectral quality of light reflected from the leaves, even before the plant looks to be stressed. In the area surrounding a gas leak the escaping methane means the plant roots cannot...

Fruit fly aggression studies have relevance to humans, animals

...organisms. To measure aggression, the researchers starved male flies for an hour and a half, then gave them a small food droplet and watched them duke it out, counting the number of times a focal fly would chase, kick, box, or flick his wings at other flies. "Some animals will very vigorously defend their...

Psst! Coffee drinkers: Fruit flies have something to tell you about caffeine

...way from food overnight and for breakfast gave the starved flies 90 minutes to eat as much as they wanted of either or both of two concoctions: a blue-colored mixture of sugar and agar and a red-colored mixture of caffeine, sugar and agar. The researchers then flipped the flies onto their backs and looked at...

Researchers to study why dead zone returned to Lake Erie

...for five years. A dead zone is an area of oxygen starved water that cannot sustain aquatic habitat, said Scavia, who is also the director of Michigan Sea Grant. In the Lake Erie case, researchers will examine three main culprits and the relationships among them: excess phosphorous; zebra mussels; and globa...

Flies don't buzz about aimlessly!

...searchers have revealed how the flight patterns of starved fruit flies constitute an optimal scale-free searching strategy ?like the fractal patterns of a snowflake, a fly flight path appears similar whether viewed up close, or from a distance. The researchers also found that searching is intermittent, s...

Mice with a migraine show signs of brain damage

...tiny transient strokes, leaving parts of the brain starved for oxygen and altering the brain in significant ways. A paper describing the work by neuroscientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center appeared online April 29 in Nature Neuroscience. The scientists say the work makes it crucial for ...

Researchers track how spores break out of dormant state

...formation from a spore to a vegetative cell. When starved of nutrients Bacillus (rod-shaped bacteria) cells initiate a series of genetic, biochemical and structural events that result in the formation of metabolically dormant spores. They can remain dormant for extended periods and, partly because of their ...

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