Could in Biological News

New stem cell research could reduce number of animal experiments

Researchers from the University of Bath are embarking on a project to use stem cell technology that could reduce the number of animal experiments used to study conditions such as motor neurone disease. Dr Vasanta Subramanian, from the University's Department of Biology & Biochemistry, will be d...

Cancer's distinctive pattern of gene expression could aid early screening and prevention

AUGUSTA, Ga. Distinctive patterns of genes turned off or left on in healthy versus cancerous cells could enable early screening for many common cancers and maybe help avoid them, Medical College of Georgia scientists say. Researchers are comparing chemical alterations, called DNA methylatio...

Improved air quality during Beijing Olympics could inform pollution-curbing policies

The air in Beijing during the 2008 Olympics was cleaner than the previous year's, due to aggressive efforts by the Chinese government to curtail traffic, increase emissions standards and halt construction in preparation for the games, according to a Cornell study. Led by Max Zhang, assistant pr...

Silicon with afterburners: Process developed at Rice could be boon to electronics manufacturer

Scientists at Rice University and North Carolina State University have found a method of attaching molecules to semiconducting silicon that may help manufacturers reach beyond the current limits of Moore's Law as they make microprocessors both smaller and more powerful. Their findings are publi...

Stunting plants' skyward reach could lead to improved yields

EAST LANSING, Mich. In the forest's fight for survival, it's the tallest trees that prevail by reaching for sunlight and shading competition. Corn and other plants, too, divert precious energy to grow higher when nearby plants start to encroach. Michigan State University plant scientist Berond...

'Invisibility cloak' could protect against earthquakes

LIVERPOOL, UK 20 July 2009: Research at the University of Liverpool has shown it is possible to develop an 'invisibility cloak' to protect buildings from earthquakes. The seismic waves produced by earthquakes include body waves which travel through the earth and surface waves which travel acr...

U of A honored for research that could help 30 million Brazilians

EdmontonThe University of Alberta now has a permanent connection to the agricultural life of millions of people in a vast region of Brazil. A newly discovered fungus that helps plants grow in dry soil has been named in honour of the U of A for its help with the research. The fungus, now known a...

Clean fuels could reduce deaths from ship smokestacks by 40,000 annually

Rising levels of smokestack emissions from oceangoing ships will cause an estimated 87,000 deaths worldwide each year by 2012 almost one-third higher than previously believed, according to the second major study on that topic. The study says that government action to reduce sulfur emissions from ...

US-Mexico border wall could threaten wildlife species

CORVALLIS, Ore. A 700-mile security wall under construction along the United States' border with Mexico could significantly alter the movement and "connectivity" of wildlife, biologists say, and the animals' potential isolation is a threat to populations of some species. However, technology an...

Pacific Northwest forests could store more carbon, help address greenhouse issues

CORVALLIS, Ore. The forests of the Pacific Northwest hold significant potential to increase carbon storage and help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in coming years, a recent study concludes, if they are managed primarily for that purpose through timber harvest reductions and increased rotation ...

New e-science service could accelerate cancer research

The University of Manchester and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory's European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) have launched a major new e-science resource for biologists which could accelerate research into treatments for H1N1 flu and cancer. Biocatalogue.org , a centralised regis...

New MRI technique could mean fewer breast biopsies in high-risk women

MADISON A University of Wisconsin-Madison biomedical engineer and colleagues have developed a method that, applied in MRI scans of the breast, could spare some women with increased breast cancer risk the pain and stress of having to endure a biopsy of a questionable lump or lesion. The univers...

New biomarker method could increase the number of diagnostic tests for cancer

A team of researchers, including several from UCSF, has demonstrated that a new method for detecting and quantifying protein biomarkers in body fluids may ultimately make it possible to screen multiple biomarkers in hundreds of patient samples, thus ensuring that only the strongest biomarker candi...

Super-sleepers could help super-sizers!

Many species of animals go through a period of torpor to conserve energy when resources are scarce. But when it comes to switching to energy-saving mode, the champion by far among vertebrates is the burrowing frog ( Cyclorana alboguttata ), which can survive for several years buried in the mud in ...

New nanoparticles could revolutionize therapeutic drug discovery

A revolutionary new protein stabilisation technique has been developed by scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) which could lead to 30 per cent more proteins being available as potential targets for drug development - opening up exciting possibilit...

Genetic finding could lead to targeted therapy for neuroblastoma

GAINESVILLE Researchers have identified a genetic glitch that could lead to development of neuroblastoma, a deadly form of cancer that typically strikes children under 2. Two University of Florida scientists are part of the multicenter team of researchers that made the discovery, which could p...

Targeting helpers of heat shock proteins could help treat cancer, cardiovascular disease

AUGUSTA, Ga. Dissecting how heat shock protein 90 gets steroid receptors into shape to use hormones like estrogen and testosterone could lead to targeted therapies for hormone-driven cancers, such as breast and prostate, that need them as well, Medical College of Georgia researchers say. "We ...

DNA template could explain evolutionary shifts

HOUSTON (June 21, 2009) Rearrangements of all sizes in genomes, genes and exons can result from a glitch in DNA copying that occurs when the process stalls at a critical point and then shifts to a different genetic template, duplicating and even triplicating genes or just shuffling or deleting p...

Fate in fly sensory organ precursor cells could explain human immune disorder

HOUSTON (June 21, 2009) Notch signaling helps determine the fate of a number of different cell types in a variety of organisms, including humans. In an article that appears in the current issue of Nature Cell Biology , researchers at Baylor College of Medicine report that a new finding about th...

Targeting children effective use of limited supplies of flu vaccine and could help control flu spread

Targeting children may be an effective use of limited supplies of flu vaccine, according to research at the University of Warwick funded by the Wellcome Trust and the EU. The study suggests that, used to support other control measures, this could help control the spread of pandemics such as the cu...

Rising acidity levels could trigger shellfish revenue declines, job losses

Changes in ocean chemistry a consequence of increased carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions from human industrial activity could cause U.S. shellfish revenues to drop significantly in the next 50 years, according to a new study by researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). Int...

Climate change could drive vast human migrations

By mid-century, people may be fleeing rising seas, droughts, floods and other effects of changing climate, in migrations that could vastly exceed the scope of anything before, says a major new report. The document, authored by researchers at Columbia University's Center for International Eart...

Mars mission could ease Earth's energy supply crisis

Techniques and instrumentation initially developed for ExoMars - Europe's next robotic mission to Mars in 2016 - but now due to fly on a NASA mission in 2018, could also provide the answers to the globally pressing issue of energy supply. A major study by the Imperial College London, funded b...

Natural seed treatment could drastically cut pesticide use

The technology - which makes plants significantly more resistant to pests - has now been licensed for use by US agricultural company Becker Underwood in collaboration with Plant Bioscience Limited. Scientists have long understood that spraying crops with jasmonic acid - a chemical naturally prod...

Ethanol production could jeopardize soil productivity

MADISON, WI, June 1, 2009 -- There is growing interest in using crop residues as the feedstock of choice for the production of cellulosic-based ethanol because of the more favorable energy output relative to grain-based ethanol. This would also help provide a solution to the debate of food versus ...

Cost-effective measures could stop child pneumonia deaths

Implementing measures to improve nutrition, indoor air pollution, immunization coverage and the management of pneumonia cases could be cost-effective and significantly reduce child mortality from pneumonia, according to a study led by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Researcher...

NAU discovery could help feed millions

When scientist Loretta Mayer set out to alleviate diseases associated with menopause, she didn't realize her work could lead to addressing world hunger and feeding hundreds of millions of people. The Northern Arizona University researcher and her colleagues at NAU and the University of Arizona ...

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

A group of researchers from the LGC Chemical Metrology Laboratory in the United Kingdom and the University of Oviedo, Spain, have come up with a method to detect how the proportions of isotopes in a chemical element (atoms with an equal number of protons and electrons but different numbers of neut...

Activated stem cells in damaged lungs could be first step toward cancer

DURHAM, N.C. Stem cells that respond after a severe injury in the lungs of mice may be a source of rapidly dividing cells that lead to lung cancer, according to a team of American and British researchers. "There are chemically resistant, local-tissue stem cells in the lung that only activate...

Identification of genetic variants affecting age at menopause could help improve fertility treatment

Vienna, Austria: For the first time, scientists have been able to identify genetic factors that influence the age at which natural menopause occurs in women. Ms Lisette Stolk, a researcher from Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, told the annual conference of the European Society of Human ...

Gene therapy could expand stem cells' promise

Once placed into a patient's body, stem cells intended to treat or cure a disease could end up wreaking havoc simply because they are no longer under the control of the clinician. But gene therapy has the potential to solve this problem, according to a perspective article from physician-scienti...

Wings that waggle could cut aircraft emissions by 20 percent

Wings which redirect air to waggle sideways could cut airline fuel bills by 20% according to research funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and Airbus in the UK. The new approach, which promises to dramatically reduce mid-flight drag, uses tiny air powered jet...

Protein identified as critical to insulating the body's wiring could also become treatment target

AUGUSTA, Ga. - A new protein identified as critical to insulating the wiring that connects the brain and body could one day be a treatment target for divergent diseases, from rare ones that lower the pain threshold to cancer, Medical College of Georgia researchers say. They report this week in ...

WWF study says climate change could displace millions in Asia's Coral Triangle

Coral reefs could disappear entirely from the Coral Triangle region of the Pacific Ocean by the end of the century, threatening the food supply and livelihoods for about 100 million people, according to a new study from World Wildlife Fund. Averting catastrophe will depend on quick and effecti...

Princeton team's analysis of flu virus could lead to better vaccines

A team of Princeton University scientists may have found a better way to make a vaccine against the flu virus. Though theoretical, the work points to the critical importance of what has been a poorly appreciated aspect of the interaction between a virus and those naturally produced defensive p...

New evidence of how high glucose damages blood vessels could lead to new treatments

AUGUSTA, Ga. New evidence of how the elevated glucose levels that occur in diabetes damage blood vessels may lead to novel strategies for blocking the destruction, Medical College of Georgia researchers say. They found a decreased ability of blood vessels to relax resulted from increased acti...

Better water use could reduce future food crises

If the overall water resources in river basins were acknowledged and managed better, future food crises could be significantly reduced, say researchers from Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University, Stockholm Environment Institute and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Th...

Two-pronged model could help foil tough cystic fibrosis infections

Hanover, NH--Dartmouth Medical School researchers have devised a novel approach for thwarting the relentless bacterial infections that thrive in the lungs of people with cystic fibrosis (CF), unlocking new possibilities against a tenacious and toxic hallmark of the common genetic disease. Combi...

Plants could override climate change effects on wildfires

The increase in warmer and drier climates predicted to occur under climate change scenarios has led many scientists to also predict a global increase in the number of wildfires. But a new study in the May issue of Ecological Monographs shows that in some cases, changes in the types of plants gro...

New nucleotide could revolutionize epigenetics

Anyone who studied a little genetics in high school has heard of adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine the A,T,G and C that make up the DNA code. But those are not the whole story. The rise of epigenetics in the past decade has drawn attention to a fifth nucleotide, 5-methylcytosine (5-mC), that...