Tag: "uga" at biology news

Thai spice helps cut blood sugar swings

In this obesity-obsessed world, the dream ingredient must be something that tastes good enough to be a condiment or flavoring and yet somehow helps us keep our weight down. Consider hydroxycitric acid (HCA), known variously as Brindle berry or Malabar tamarind, which is used in Indian and Thai food as a condiment and flavoring agent. . .. For HCA, though, the other half of the taste-be...

Sugar beet virus mutation requires Texas touch

The only sugar beets growing in Texas are in the laboratory. But those few plants are getting to the root of problems throughout the sugar beet industry. .. . .. "We do all of our work in the greenhouse and laboratory," he said. "Here, we have...

Cats' indifference towards sugar explained

Unlike most mammals, cats--both domestic and wild--are indifferent to sweets. A new study in PLoS Genetics explains the molecular mechanism behind their strictly carnivorous behavior. "We took a behavioral question and answered it molecularly," says Joseph Brand, senior author of the study and Associate Director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center. . Scattered on mammalian tongues are specialize...

Sleeping Sickness Epidemic Spreading in Uganda

A drug first used to reduce the risk of stomach ulcers in people taking certain types of painkillers offers an alternative to surgery after miscarriage, according to a study by researchers at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health and other research institutions. .. . The drug, misoprostol, has been used to reduce the risk of stomach ulce...

Pregnant women at higher risk for HIV, Uganda study finds

The risk of acquiring HIV rises during pregnancy, according to a study of women in Uganda's Rakai District led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The increased risk for acquiring HIV remained even after researchers controlled for behavior and other factors that contribute to HIV risk. The findings, which are published in the September 30, 2005, edition of The L...

Researchers at UGA provide first look at protein expression in Chagas disease-causing parasites

Covering ship hulls with artificial shark skin could help ships sailing smoothly. The growth of marine organisms such as barnacles on ship hulls is a major cause of increased energy costs in the naval industry. Shark skin offers a structural design that prevents this so called 'bio-fouling'. . .. Shark skin comprises scales tha...

Sugar helps control cell division

Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered that a deceptively simple sugar is in fact a critical regulator of cells' natural life cycle. . .. The sugar, known as O-GlcNAc (pronounced oh-GLUCK-nack), is used inside cells to modify proteins, turning the proteins off or on, helping or prev...

Life-extending protein keeps blood sugar in check

A protein that extends lifespan in yeast, worms, and flies keeps blood sugar under control in mice, reports a new study in the August Cell Metabolism. The findings suggest therapeutic interventions for the prevention and treatment of metabolic disorders, such as type 2 diabetes, which frequently arise with age, the researchers said. . The team found that mice with an excess of the protein Sirt1 i...

Researcher at UGA College of Veterinary Medicine identifies new way of combating viral diseases

Four seemingly unrelated viral diseases may some day be defeated by a single treatment, according to a recent collaborative study involving researchers at the University of Georgia's College of Veterinary Medicine. . .. In the September issue of the Journal of Virology, Thomas Hodge, research profess...

Targeted drug delivery achieved with nanoparticle-aptamer bioconjugates

Ground-breaking results from researchers at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, disclosed at the 13th European Cancer Conference (ECCO) have shown for the first time that targeted drug delivery is possible using nanoparticle-apatamer conjugates. . Nucleic acid ligands (referred to as aptamers) are short DNA or RNA fragments that can bind to target antigen...

Primates harvest bee nests in Ugandan reserve

In the first study of native African honeybees and honey-making stingless bees in the same habitat, humans and chimpanzees are the primary bee nest predators. Robert Kajobe of the Dutch Tropical Bee Research Unit and David Roubik from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute report this finding in the March, 2006 issue of Biotropica. . Batwa Pygmies, who have traditionally harvested honey f...

Too much sugar not good for coral reefs

The race is on to buy up inexpensive land along coastlines for vacation homes and tourist hotels. But increased development can mean more nutrient rich runoff that threatens the very coral reefs attracting tourists in the first place. David Kline at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and colleagues find that bacteria on coral reefs grow out of control as the level of simple sugars in...

Darkness unveils vital metabolic fuel switch between sugar and fat

Constant darkness throws a molecular switch in mammals that shifts the body's fuel consumption from glucose to fat and induces a state of torpor in mice, a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston reports in the Jan. 19 edition of Nature. . While their findings could provide new insight into mammalian hibernation, researchers note that the pivotal met...

Scientists seek to unwrap the sweet mystery of the sugar coat on bacteria

Scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a quick and simple way to investigate the sugar coating that surrounds bacteria and plays a role in infection and immunity. . .. "There's a growing recognition of the importance of carbohydrates on bacterial cell surfaces," says Dr. Lara Mahal, lead researcher and assistant professor of c...

UGA study explains peaks and troughs of dengue epidemics

Scientists have long known that epidemics of dengue fever wax and wane over a period of several years, but they've never been quite sure why. With the incidence and range of the potentially deadly mosquito-borne illness increasing, understanding the factors that influence these epidemics has never been more important. . .. "We found that since about the mid 1980s, the...

UGA researchers find that hunting can increase the severity of wildlife disease epidemics

A new study by University of Georgia researchers shows that the common practice of killing wild animals to control disease outbreaks can actually make matters worse in some cases. . In a study published the August 7 edition of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, post-doctoral researcher Marc Choisy and Pejman Rohani, associate professor of ecology and UGA Biomedi...

A single sugar found responsible for an antibody's ability to treat inflammation

For years, researchers have struggled to understand how IVIG worked. It's ability to treat autoimmune diseases seemed to bean apparent contradiction. . Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) is a complex mixture of IgG antibodies made from human plasma that contains the pooled antibodies from thousands of people, and is only FDA-approved to treat a few assorted conditions; nonetheless, practitioners...

Researchers attack tumor cells by exploiting dependency on sugar metabolism

Although scientists have known for nearly 90 years that cancer cells commonly display altered sugar metabolism, the molecular significance of this phenomenon is not completely understood. Now, a new study published in the June issue of Cancer Cell reveals a functional connection between carbohydrate-driven energy production and tumor maintenance. Importantly, the results suggest that inhibition o...

Acid rain causing decline in sugar maples, say researchers

Acid rain, the environmental consequence of burning fossil fuels, running factories and driving cars, has altered soils and reduced the number of sugar maple trees growing in the Northeast, according to a new study led by Cornell University researchers. . .. The study, whose lead author, Stephanie Juice '04, was an undergraduate when the research was conducted, suggests that because acid rain ma...

Herbal medicine silymarin may help sugar-control in people with type II diabetes

Diabetes is a growing health problem. Giving antioxidants is recognised as one way of helping people with diabetes to control their blood sugar levels. . .. Silymarin contains a number of active constituents called flavolignans which are...

UGA scientists engineer root-knot nematode resistance

University of Georgia professor Richard Hussey has spent 20 years studying a worm-shaped parasite too small to see without a microscope. His discovery is vastly bigger. Hussey and his research team have found a way to halt the damage caused by one of the world's most destructive groups of plant pathogens. . .. They attack nearly every food and fiber crop...

Cougar predation key to ecosystem health

The general disappearance of cougars from a portion of Zion National Park in the past 70 years has allowed deer populations to dramatically increase, leading to severe ecological damage, loss of cottonwood trees, eroding streambanks, and declining biodiversity. . .. The research was just published in the journal Biological Conserv...

UGA scientists unravel 'molecular inch-worm' structure of walking-pneumonia bacterium

Researchers at the University of Georgia, using glow-in-the-dark proteins and microcinematography, have helped unravel the development and function of a complex organelle in the bacterium that causes "walking pneumonia." . .. "Mycoplasmas are among the simplest known proka...

Silver bullet: UGA researchers use laser, nanotechnology to rapidly detect viruses

Waiting a day or more to get lab results back from the doctor's office soon could become a thing of a past. Using nanotechnology, a team of University of Georgia researchers has developed a diagnostic test that can detect viruses as diverse as influenza, HIV and RSV in 60 seconds or less. . .. "It saves days to weeks," said lead author Ralph Tripp, Georgia Research Allian...

Did 'ABCs' cause Uganda's fall in HIV rates?

The much-publicized "ABC" approach to HIV prevention continues to be mired in controversy, partly because of its focus on abstinence-only sex education programs over condom promotion, a focus that pits political and religious conservatives against their liberal counterparts. Nevertheless, the ABC approach is sometimes credited as being responsible for Uganda's dramatic decline in HIV rates. A p...

Developing uses for sugar-cane bagasse: Biotechnology applied to the paper industry

The principal raw material used for manufacturing paper pulp is wood. However, growing demand in the paper industry, at a time of dwindling forest resources, have compelled the sector to turn to other sources of raw materials, such as cereal straw, reeds, bamboo or sugar-cane bagasse. . This residue, obtained after crushing of the cane, is already used as a source of paper-making fibres in produ...

From managing sugar to managing healing

Insulin is a hormone known primarily for regulating sugar levels in the blood, yet researchers at the University of California, Riverside, recently found that applying insulin directly to skin wounds significantly enhanced the healing process. . .. In follow-up studies of human skin cells in culture, Manuela Martins-Green and colleagues explored the molecular impa...

E. coli bacteria migrating between humans, chimps in Ugandan park

Scientists from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana have found that people employed in chimpanzee-focused research and tourism in a park in western Uganda are exchanging gastrointestinal bacteria ?specifically Escherichia coli ?with local chimpanzee populations. And some of the E. coli strains migrating to chimps are resistant to antibiotics used by humans in Uganda. . .. Other studi...

'Juiced-up' battery fueled by sugar could power small portable electronics

Dutch researcher Harm Veling has demonstrated that our brains fend off distractions. If we are busy with something we suppress disrupting external influences. If we are tired, we can no longer do this. . .. .. Psychologists carry out a lot of research into the forgetting of distracting information. For this they use a standar...

Resistance to anti-HIV drugs in Uganda developed due to drug supply problems

Some HIV-infected patients in Uganda who self-paid for their antiretroviral medications experienced interruptions in drug supply due to either financial demands or supply logistical disruptions. These treatment interruptions led to the development of resistance to antiretroviral medications in patients. . .. "We have found the concern is not about the occasional missed dose—most of the patients...

Uganda's mountain gorillas increase in number

The most recent census of mountain gorillas in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park—one of only two places in the world where the rare gorillas exist—has found that the population has increased by 6 percent since the last census in 2002, according to the Uganda Wildlife Authority, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Max Planck Institute of Anthropology and other groups that participated...

Blood sugar's manufacture limited by building blocks' supply

Researchers have discovered a factor that controls blood sugar's manufacture in a novel way: by limiting the supply of its building blocks. The findings are reported in the April issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, published by Cell Press. . The study found that mice deficient for KLF15, a member of the so-called Krüppel-like family of transcription factors, become severely lacking in the blood...

Targeting sugar on blood vessels may inhibit cancer growth

In a study that could point to novel therapies to prevent cancer spread, or metastasis, researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine have targeted a sugar that supports blood vessel growth in the tumor. Their findings will be published in the May 7 on-line issue of Journal of Cell Biology. . Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer death and an area wh...

Nicotine rush hinges on sugar in neurons

.. .. .. Structural biologist Raymond Stevens of The Scripps Research Institute, who was not involved in the study, called it “a landmark accomplishment for the fields of s...