Tag: "twist" at biology news

Maine Researchers Find Exceptions to Old Rules of Genetic Inheritance

...t haplotype to half their offspring. In a strange twist to what Mendel might have predicted, the males pass the t haplotype to nearly 100 percent of their offspring (a phenomenon known as "transmission ratio distortion")-practically twice the Mendelian prediction. Stranger still, male and female mice tha...

Bumblebees copy one another when contending with unfamiliar flowers

...have reported findings that offer a surprising new twist to our understanding of how bumblebees, a vital floral pollinator, select the flowers from which they collect nectar. When faced with unfamiliar plants, foraging bees do not choose flowers entirely alone but instead copy the choices of other bees. Th...

Engineered molecule amplifies body's immune response

...d thus more efficient. This old protein with a new twist may eventually be used to improve the body's defense against infection. Stat1 is involved in immune responses that are initiated by proteins called interferons. These proteins are produced by the cells of the immune system in response to challenge...

Geckos: It's not always about sex

...babies are genetically identical to her. A further twist to the story is that many parthenogentic species, including the Bynoe's gecko, evolved when two species crossed, or hybridized, said Michael Kearney. He is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Centre for Environmental Stress and Adaptation Research ...

Scientists discover new way to look at how molecules twist and turn on water

... have developed a method to determine the tilt and twist angles of these molecules at the surface, a characterization that is important for understanding how they might function in various practical applications," Richmond said. "This is a general approach that has broad implications for a variety of chemi...

Recreating 'Flowers for Algernon' with a happy ending

In a surprise twist that recalls the film classic "Flowers for Algernon," but adds a happy ending, UCLA scientists used statins, a popular class of cholesterol drugs, to reverse the attention deficits linked to the leading genetic cause of learning disabilities. The No...

Marine mammals are on the frontline of failing ocean health

...read of disease and pollutants, adding yet another twist to the story. Jim Berner, an MD with Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, works in northern ocean ecosystems, where climate change is having a marked effect. "Alaska is a laboratory for human health issues, particularly those that have to do wit...

When good DNA goes bad

...agged zipper shape. Scientists call this left-hand twist Z-DNA. This is a far cry from the graceful right-hand twisted helix that has become an iconic symbol of biology. It just doesn't look right, and it doesn't act right either, according to Vasquez. This awkward shape puts strain on the DNA, and as Vasq...

Salmonella bacteria use RNA to assess and adjust magnesium levels

...The riboswitch is a sensor within the RNA that can twist it into different configurations that block or fac... a similar sequence precedes the MgtA gene and can twist RNA copied from it into different configurations. "Normally you would expect to find that a DNA se...

Researchers identify human DNA on the fast track

...lions of years in most species," said Pollard. "My twist was to look for the subset of these regions that have changed just in humans." Forty-nine regions, which the team called human accelerated regions (HARs), rose to the top of the list. Surprisingly, only two of these regions code for proteins. Inste...

Surprise finding for stretched DNA

...ges in the rotor bead angle reflect changes in the twist of the lower DNA segment," Bustamante said. "The o.... These proteins are known to bend, wrap, loop and twist DNA. Now it has been shown that they can achieve their goals by simultaneously stretching and overw...

Got inexpensive contrast agent? Milk plays new role in imaging

In a new twist on the slogan “milk does a body good,?radiologists are testing use of the dairy staple as a contrast agent in gastrointestinal imaging exams—with excellent results. The researchers reported their findings today at the annual meeting of the Radiologic...

Sunflower speciation highlights roles for transposable elements in evolution

.... The new findings not only add an interesting twist to the origin of new sunflower species through hybridization, but also suggest that the sunflower system may emerge as an excellent model group for studying the natural forces influencing the activation and proliferation of transposable elements in p...

A new understanding of how cells defend themselves against bacterial pore-forming toxins

...echnique Federale de Lausanne) have unveiled a new twist in a metabolic pathway that cells use to defend themselves against toxins made by disease-causing bacteria. The discovery of this pathway, published in the September 22 issue of the journal Cell, advances our understanding of how cells mount a surv...

Pleasure and pain: Study shows brain's 'pleasure chemical' is involved in response to pain too

...w study from the University of Michigan adds a new twist to dopamine's fun-loving reputation: pain. Using sophisticated brain-scanning and a carefully controlled way of inducing muscle pain, the researchers show that the brain's dopamine system is highly active while someone experiences pain ?and that ...

Nanotech tools yield DNA transcription breakthrough

...red to as "magnetic tweezers" to hold, stretch and twist a single molecule of DNA having a single start site for transcription. They then read out changes in the conformation of the DNA molecule in real time as transcription occurred. The researchers showed that the molecular machine responsible for transc...

When the label says 'low fat,' calories can pile up, study says

...nto eating more than regular labels. But the cruel twist is that these labels have an even more dramatic impact on those who are overweight. They are at danger for really overindulging when they see something with a low-fat label. If we are looking for an excuse to eat, low-fat labels give it to us." He ...

Detailed 3-D image catches a key regulator of neural stem cell differentiation in action

...o specialized neurons. "Scp1 is an interesting twist on how genes can be regulated during development," says Pfaff. "In the past there has been a lot of emphasis on chromatin modifications and physical access to genes, but Scp1 regulates the activity of the enzyme that transcribes genes directly," he a...

Vasectomy may put men at risk for type of dementia

...ility to speak and understand language, an unusual twist of the disease is patients are still able to maintain their hobbies and perform other complicated tasks for a number of years before other symptoms develop. Some people garden, build cabinets and even navigate a city subway system. By contrast, Alzhe...

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