Break in Biological News

Lab-on-a-chip homes in on how cancer cells break free

Johns Hopkins engineers have invented a method that could be used to help figure out how cancer cells break free from neighboring tissue, an "escape" that can spread the disease to other parts of the body. The new lab-on-a-chip, described in the March issue of the journal Nature Methods , could l...

Scientists break record by finding northernmost hydrothermal vent field

Well inside the Arctic Circle, scientists have found black smoker vents farther north than anyone has ever seen before. The cluster of five vents one towering nearly four stories in height are venting water as hot as 570 F. Dissolved sulfide minerals that solidify when vent water hits the icy...

Iowa State researcher studies how enzymes break down cellulose

AMES, Iowa Peter Reilly pointed to the framed journal covers decorating his office. Each of the six showed the swirling, twisting, complicated structure of an enzyme. Those bright and colorful illustrations are the work of his lab. And theyre part of Reillys work to understand how the structur...

Researchers track how spores break out of dormant state

Tapping into the unknown world of awakening dormant bacterial spores, researchers have revealed through atomic force microscopy (AFM) the alterations of spore coat and germ cell wall that accompany the transformation from a spore to a vegetative cell. When starved of nutrients Bacillus (rod-shap...

Successful lung cancer surgery not enough to break nicotine dependence in many smokers

A new study has found that close to half of 154 smokers who had surgery to remove early stage lung cancer picked up a cigarette again within 12 months of their potentially curative operation, and more than one-third were smoking at the one year mark. Sixty percent of patients who started smoking a...

Bones from blood: Scientists aim to break new ground on fractures

Scientists at the University of York have launched a new research project which aims to develop ways of making bones from blood. Researchers from the University's Department of Biology are heading the EC-backed project to create bone structures from cord blood stem cells for use in the repair of ...

How Rickettsial pathogens break into cells

New research by a team of scientists in France and the United States has identified both the bacterial and host receptor proteins that enable Rickettsia conorii, the Mediterranean spotted fever pathogen, to enter cells. Understanding how this bacterium interacts with the cells of its host could lea...

UQ scientists break new ground in fight against infection & chronic disease

University of Queensland (UQ) researchers are on track to develop new treatments for acute infections, chronic inflammatory diseases and cancer. The research could revolutionise treatments for conditions such as bird flu, arthritis, and inflammatory bowel disease, by using a mechanism that gives...

Scientists reveal the shape of a protein that helps retroviruses break into cells

The biggest mass extinction in Earth history some 251 million years ago was preceded by elevated extinction rates before the main event and was followed by a delayed recovery that lasted for millions of years. New research by two University of Washington scientists suggests that a sharp decline in ...

Scientists open doors to diagnosis of emphysema

...ungs to destroy the foreign material, and chronic exposure causes inflammation. MMP12 is an enzyme secreted by macrophages which usually helps them to break down the extracellular matrix (the complex network of proteins and fibers that surround and support the cells of the body), a process important for no...

New supercomputer to reel in answers to some of Earth's problems

...o help understand how water molecules form stable clusters. The work also gives researchers insight into how small particles in the air form clouds or break them up. Bacterial transformers: Communities of bacteria live and grow in the soil. And some bacteria have a taste for metals, a talent that can b...

DOE-funded research projects win 46 R&D 100 Awards for 2009

...ic-Energy-Reducing Inlet System for Mass Spectrometers - permits high-resolution mass analysis of large, intact biological molecules without having to break them apart. With this spectrometer, the large biomolecular ions are captured in a trapping field while air is pumped away. Conventional spectrometers ...

Scientists link immune system's natural killer cells to infant liver disease

...ile duct surface cells by attaching to the Nk2d protein, which resides on the membranes of bile duct cells. Once that contact is established, NK cells break down the membranes of bile duct surface cells, leading to tissue damage. When researchers blocked the Nkg2d receptor and depleted the number of NK ...

Warming climate threatens California fruit and nut production

...void cold injury in the winter by losing their leaves in the fall and entering a dormant state that lasts through late fall and winter. In order to break dormancy and resume growth, the trees must receive a certain amount of winter chill, traditionally expressed as the number of winter chilling hours be...

Iowa State University researchers develop process for 'surgical' genetic changes

... specific gene is located in a living cell, then a break is made in the DNA of that gene. When the cell beg...eted or modified, or new DNA can be added near the break site. Afterward, the cell carries the genetic chan... been known for a long time that you if you make a break in a cell, you can get some DNA into that spot," s...

Herbicide diversity needed to keep Roundup effective

... us, marestail being the first weed that developed resistance showed that a weed-management system that is solely reliant on glyphosate is starting to break down. However, a system that incorporates other herbicides with glyphosate can be sustainable for quite some time." The Indiana Soybean Alliance, B...

New technique can fast-track better ionic liquids for biomass pre-treatments

...re we can begin to roll down the highways on sustainable, carbon-neutral grassoline, numerous barriers must be overcome, starting with finding ways to break lignocellulosic biomass down into fermentable sugars. The use of ionic liquids - salts that are liquids rather than crystals at room temperature ...

Telomeres resemble DNA fragile sites

...follows them," she says. "In constrast, telomeres represent fragile sites with a known sequence, which may help us understand how common fragile sites break throughout the genome and why." ...

New crops needed for new climate

...n Glasgow, has shown that the concentration of cyanogenic glycosides, which break down to release toxic hydrogen cyanide, increased in plants in elevated CO ...eased, making the plants overall more toxic as the ability of herbivores to break down cyanide depends largely on the ingestion of sufficient quantities of p...

US-Mexico border wall could threaten wildlife species

...ientists added. Results of their study are being published in the journal Conservation Biology . "The biggest concern is that this barrier will break small populations of animals into even smaller pieces that will result in fewer animals interacting," said Clinton Epps, a wildlife biologist at Orego...

Research network wins approximately £5.7 million to target human and animal diseases in Africa

...LIDC will also assist. The SACIDS secretariat is funded with money from Google.org. LIDC's partnership with SACIDS is part of its larger effort to break down barriers between agriculture and health research to encourage an integrated approach to complex international development problems. LIDC helps to...

Colorectal cancer

...y tumor," explained the surgeon and clinical researcher Dr. Johannes Fritzmann, "but the dangerous metastases." Metastases arise when single cells break off from the primary tumor and spread to other body regions via the blood vessels or the lymphatic system. In colorectal cancer, these cells usually s...

New crops needed for new climate

...n Glasgow, has shown that the concentration of cyanogenic glycosides, which break down to release toxic hydrogen cyanide, increased in plants in elevated CO ...eased, making the plants overall more toxic as the ability of herbivores to break down cyanide depends largely on the ingestion of sufficient quantities of p...

Engineering innovative solutions for 21st century medicine

...se and treat osteoarthritis at a much earlier stage." KCL Medical Imaging: 10m Professor Reza Razavi said: "Our Medical Engineering Centre will break down the barriers between engineering, the physical sciences, and biology and medicine. We will conduct world-class clinical trials to show the benefi...

Salt block unexpectedly stretches in Sandia experiments

...g the cube. In this, it resembled the behavior of the surface of water when an object is withdrawn from it. But unlike water, the salt meniscus didn't break from its own weight as the tip was withdrawn. Instead it followed the tip along, slip-sliding away (so to speak) as it thinned and elongated from 580 ...

How to text message and avoid pain

...ackrest. Relieve your forearms by resting them against a desk or your thighs. Use both thumbs. Avoid hunching over for a long time. Give your thumbs a break when typing long messages. Don't type too fast. ...

Coral face 'a stormy future'

... The concern is that if major storms and bleaching become more frequent as the climate warms, the ability of individual reefs to renew themselves may break down completely, Jennie says. "While our work was carried out in the Caribbean, it has general implications for coral reefs globally, and deepens o...

Phthalic symbol

... Immobilized microbes can break down potentially harmful phthalates, according to researchers in China, writing in the International Journal of Environment and Pollution . The micro...

Norway, Japan prop up whaling industry with taxpayer money

... use of taxpayer funds by Japan. During the 2008-09 season, the Japanese whaling industry, for example, needed US$12 million in taxpayer money just to break even. Overall, Japanese subsidies for whaling amount to US$164 million since 1988. Other major findings in the report include: Wholesale pr...

Gear bans 'can help save reefs'

...result in a surprising amount of damage to the corals themselves. When a fish is shot with a spear gun, it often hides in the reef, so some fishermen break the corals in their attempts to get it." Dr Cinner says. But in developing countries, spear guns can be the fishing tool most used by the poorest f...

Help for climate-stressed corals

...result in a surprising amount of damage to the corals themselves. When a fish is shot with a spear gun, it often hides in the reef, so some fishermen break the corals in their attempts to get it." Dr Cinner says. But in developing countries, spear guns can be the fishing tool most used by the poorest f...

Researchers describe 'implausible' chemistry that produces herbicidal compound

...usual chemical pathway in the manufacture of its arsenal, researchers report, making use of an enzyme that can do what no other enzyme is known to do: break a non-activated carbon-carbon bond in a single step. Their study, appearing this week in the journal Nature , provides the first three-dimensional...

Muscle atrophy through thick but not thin

...s. The researchers triggered atrophy in mice containing defective MuRF1 (lacking its RING-finger domain crucial for ubiquitylation). These mutant mice break down less muscle than wild-type mice, and less ubiquitylation takes place in the mutants. Cohen and colleagues found that MuRF1 targets the thick ...

Sulphur in just one hair could blow a terrorist's alibi

...we still cannot say that a certain isotopic variation in a person's hair shows that he or she has been in a particular country, the method can help to break down the alibis of some terrorists who claim not to have moved over recent months", says Santamara-Fernndez. Various British security forces, such ...

The evolution of gene regulation

...ions even in microorganisms. It is known, for example, that the intestinal bacterium Escherichia coli in the digestive tract of young mammals can break down lactose, the sugar abundant in mother's milk. To do this, the bacterium produces the enzyme lactase but only if lactose is actually present. Mos...

LSUHSC research describes function of key protein in cancer spread

... metastatic cancer is a cancer that has spread from its primary site (the part of the body in which it developed) to other parts of the body. If cells break away from a cancerous tumor, they can travel to other areas of the body. There, they may settle and form "colony" tumors. In their new location, the c...

Queen's scientists discover eco-friendly wood dissolution

...h century and uses a wasteful technology relying on polluting chemicals. The key reason for tolerating this method is that it is very difficult to break down and separate the different elements of wood. Until now any alternatives to the process have presented similar problems. The Queen's researcher...

Plastic that grows on trees, part two

...e to feed cellulosic biomass directly from nature, the team still needed to break down cellulose into simple sugars -- Zhang and colleagues wanted to learn h...ts, the team tested how well their method compared to acid, a common way to break down cellulose. The metal chlorides-ionic liquid system worked ten times fa...

Are you okay to kiss?

...oothbrush. But if it's clear, you're "okay to kiss." Until now, scientists believed that only one population of bacteria (the Gram-negative ones) break down the proteins in the mouth and produce foul odor. But Prof. Mel Rosenberg and Dr. Nir Sterer of TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine recently discov...

Scientists work to plug microorganisms into the energy grid

...g for microbes or microbial products that can help break it down into simple sugars. They are currently st...onsolidate bioprocessing microbe: It can not only break down the cellulosic biomass to sugars but ferment ...g time and money. "Right now it is expensive to break down cellulosic biomass. That is why we don't hav...