GROWing in Biological News

'Bycatch' whaling a growing threat to coastal whales

NEWPORT, Ore. Scientists are warning that a new form of unregulated whaling has emerged along the coastlines of Japan and South Korea, where the commercial sale of whales killed as fisheries "bycatch" is threatening coastal stocks of minke whales and other protected species. Scott Baker, assoc...

Tiny tool to control growing blood vessels opens new potential in tumor research

Researchers at Uppsala University have developed a new tool that makes it possible to study the signals in the body that control the generation of blood vessels. The researchers' findings, published in the new issue of Lab on a Chip , enable scientists to determine what signals in the body attra...

GEN reports on growing reliance on microfluidics technology

New Rochelle, NY, January 22, 2009--Biotechnology companies are building on what they have learned about microfluidics techniques over the past decade and are expected to drive this market toward $1.9 billion in three years, reports Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News ( GEN ); ( www.genen...

GEN reports growing focus on PI3-kinase pathway in cancer research

New Rochelle, NY, December 4, 2008Researchers are taking a closer look at the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3-kinase) pathway as studies continue to demonstrate that inhibiting this biological route suppresses tumor growth, reports Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News ( GEN ). The pathway is ...

Ocean growing more acidic faster than once thought

University of Chicago scientists have documented that the ocean is growing more acidic faster than previously thought. In addition, they have found that the increasing acidity correlates with increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a paper published online by the Proceedings...

Coral reefs found growing in cold, deep ocean

Imagine descending in a submarine to the ice-cold, ink-black depths of the ocean, 800 metres under the surface of the Atlantic. Here the tops of the hills are covered in large coral reefs. NIOZ-researcher Furu Mienis studied the formation of these unknown cold-water relatives of the better-known t...

Fertilizers -- a growing threat to sea life

A rise in carbon emissions is not the only threat to the planet. Changes to the nitrogen cycle, caused in large part by the widespread use of fertilizers, are also damaging both water quality and aquatic life. These concerns are highlighted by Professor Grace Brush, from Johns Hopkins University i...

Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News reports on growing role of molecular diagnostics

New Rochelle, NY, October 3, 2008Novel platform technologies and key advances in genomics are rapidly driving the development of molecular diagnostics, reports Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News (GEN). The payoff for successful molecular diagnostic products can be significant as Kalorama...

Researchers discover that growing up too fast may mean dying young in honey bees

Hilton Head, SCReactive oxygen species (ROS) occur as a by-product of aerobic metabolism and impair cellular function by damaging proteins, nucleotides and lipids. Organisms possess a variety of anti-oxidant mechanisms to mitigate the effects of ROS, and the oxidative stress model of aging and se...

Giant grass offers clues to growing corn in cooler climes, researchers report

A giant perennial grass used as a biofuels source has a much longer growing season than corn, and researchers think they've found the secret of its success. Their findings offer a promising avenue for developing cold-tolerant corn, an advance that would significantly boost per-acre yields. The ...

Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News reports on growing use of cell-based assays

New Rochelle, NY, April 16, 2008Biotech and pharma companies are increasingly relying on cell-based assays in early drug discovery work, reports Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN). The technique can provide a quick and lower cost means of testing drug candidates for toxic effects, acco...

A tall story: New research adds to growing body of knowledge of genetics of height

Scientists are beginning to develop a clearer picture of what makes some people stand head and shoulders above the rest. A team of researchers who last year identified the first common version of a gene influencing height has now identified a further twenty regions of the genome which together can...

MRSA in hospital intensive care -- what's growing where?

Researchers are finding out which bugs grow in intensive care units to develop a novel sampling regime that would indicate the threat of MRSA and other superbugs in the environment, scientists heard today (Monday 31 March 2008) at the Society for General Microbiologys 162nd meeting being held this...

Research project aims to control sunlight, extend growing season and conserve energy

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Cleveland Botanical Garden and Kent State Universitys Liquid Crystal Institute - recognized internationally as the pioneering scientific center for research in the field - today announced a partnership to design and construct unique research greenhouses on the Gardens campus. ...

Economical, nonpolluting solutions to greenhouse growing found

ATHENS, GREECE -- A recent study of an ancient growing medium has implications for advancing growth and yield of greenhouse crops grown in soilless conditions. Greek research scientists Dr. George Gizas and Dr. Dimitrios Savvas recently conducted trials of four grades of pumice to determine the...

Nanotech could make solar energy as easy and cheap as growing grass

WASHINGTON, DCScientists are working to produce cheap, sustainable solar energy by imitating nature. Nanotechnology researchers like California Institute of Technology professor Nate Lewis are exploring nanoscale materials that mimic the architecture of grass and photosynthesis to capture and stor...

A new approach to growing heart muscle

It looks, contracts and responds almost like natural heart muscle ?even though it was grown in the lab. And it brings scientists another step closer to the goal of creating replacement parts for damaged human hearts, or eventually growing an entirely new heart from just a spoonful of loose heart ce...

Study IDs protein that inhibits HIV from growing in cell cultures

How a harmless virus called GB Virus type C (GBV-C) protects against HIV infection is now better understood. Researchers at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Iowa City Health Care System and the University of Iowa have identified a protein segment that strongly inhibits HIV from growing in ce...

MIT creates 3-D scaffold for growing stem cells

Stem cells grew, multiplied and differentiated into brain cells on a new three-dimensional scaffold of tiny protein fragments designed to be more like a living body than any other cell culture system. An MIT engineer and Italian colleagues will report the invention-which may one day replace the u...

New journal article urges use of animal serum-free media for growing live cells

In the March issue of Trends in Biotechnology, scientists and doctors with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) recommend using only animal serum-free media to grow live cells in the laboratory. At issue is the use of fetal calf serum, which is obtained by puncturing the heart o...

Group proves it's possible to grow new lung alveoli by growing new blood vessels

The good news is that medical advances in perinatal care have allowed us to save many more premature babies. The bad news is they're often at risk of developing bronchopulmonary dysplasia--a chronic lung disease caused by having to place the tiny infants on ventilators and oxygen-rich therapy for a...

UT Southwestern researchers unravel control of growing blood vessels

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered a basic mechanism by which smooth muscle cells that line the blood vessels can grow ?sometimes abnormally ?suggesting methods of treatment for various coronary diseases. Abnormal growth of cells inside blood vessels is involved in hypert...

Elderly mice yield clues to the process of growing old

Delving deep into the molecular subtleties of a strain of mice engineered to age rapidly, scientists have found that an accumulation of genetic mutations prompts a cascade of programmed cell death that seems to underpin the aging process. Writing today (July 15, 2005) in the journal Science, a te...

Gene therapy promising for growing tooth-supporting bone

A University of Michigan research team has found that introducing a growth factor protein into a mouth wound using gene therapy helped generate bone around dental implants, according to a new paper in the February issue of the journal Molecular Therapy. In a patient with a sizeable mouth wound, ...

Threats to wild tigers growing

The wild tiger now occupies a mere 7 percent of its historic range, and the area known to be inhabited by tigers has declined by 41 percent over the past decade, according to an article published in the June 2007 issue of BioScience. Growing trade in folk medicines made from tiger parts and tiger ...

AGU journal highlights -- Aug. 6, 2009

..., and agricultural productivity. Thus changes in the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth can affect society, the environment, and the economy. A growing body of evidence supports that human interference has affected the amount of solar radiation that is able to penetrate the atmospherein general, aeros...

Understanding how weeds are resistant to herbicides

...ally sequenced using this technology. The pyrosequencing machine emits a light signal that's captured every time a nucleotide is incorporated into a growing DNA strand. "The reason it's so fast is that it's done in parallel," said Tranel. "The plate has thousands of tiny wells, and a sequencing reaction go...

Bioethanol's impact on water supply 3 times higher than once thought

...gallons and note that experts expect it to increase in the near future. The growing demand for bioethanol, particularly corn-based ethanol, has sparked signifi...er from farm to fuel pump, depending on the regional irrigation practice in growing corn. However, a dozen states in the Corn Belt consume less than 100 gallon...

Scary ancient spiders revealed in 3-D models, thanks to new imaging technique

...ing during this period early in the history of life on land. We think one creature could have responded to increasing predation from the amphibians by growing spikes, while the other responded by becoming an ambush predator, hiding away and only exposing itself when it had to come out to eat." At present,...

Restoring a natural root signal helps to fight a major corn pest

...oot damage and considerably fewer surviving rootworms. Further fine-tuning of this natural defense strategy will allow for an environmentally friendly growing of maize with minimized use of synthetic insecticides. The project was carried out within the framework of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in ...

Aware, Inc. Reports Second Quarter 2009 Financial Results

...executive officer, said, "We are encouraged by the modest growth in our revenues this quarter. Our goal is to generate shareholder value by targeting growing portions of the biometrics, DSL test and home networking markets with a collection of technology, products and services." Note: Aware's confer...

August 2009 Geology and GSA Today media highlights

...l calcite in these layers varies through time, and Wittkop et al. show how these variations are linked to long-term changes in the Northern Hemisphere growing season as controlled by dynamics of Earth's orbit around the sun. Short-term variations in calcite abundance also occur on a scale of decades. While t...

Douglas-fir, geoducks make strange bedfellows in studying climate change

...oost metabolism in geoduck and result in greater growth rates. Warm sea surface temperatures also mean less snow in the Cascade Mountains and a longer growing season for Douglas-firs and other trees, which are reflected in wider growth rings. The limiting factor in using growth rings to study climate chan...

Large trees declining in Yosemite

... Jan van Wagtendonk. "Warmer conditions increase the length of the summer dry season and decrease the snowpack that provides much of the water for the growing season. A longer summer dry season can also reduce tree growth and vigor, and can reduce trees' ability to resist insects and pathogens." Scientis...

Nottinghamshire Police First Law Enforcement Agency to Deploy ForensicSoft in United Kingdom

... PROVIDENCE, R.I., July 28 /PRNewswire/ -- ForensicSoft, a growing provider of digital forensic software and services, is proud to announce th... tools that help forensic investigators and legal professionals address the growing volume of investigations involving digital evidence. Our unique insight int...

Fox Chase researchers uncover one force behind the MYC oncogene in many cancers

...hibition." According to Testa, DLX5 is a member of the homeobox family of genes, which direct the timing of events in the physical development of a growing fetus, such as when to sprout a limb, for example. In adults, such genes are almost entirely inactive. After their previous studies demonstrated th...

1 in 6 health workers won't report in flu pandemic -- study by Ben-Gurion U. researchers

...ndents did not perceive their work environment as safe, and 15 percent of the respondents felt they could not safely arrive to work. Despite the growing research examining willingness to respond to large-scale emergencies, there remains a gap in public health preparedness literature on training approac...

Microbes and their hosts -- exploring the complexity of symbiosis in DNA and cell biology

...ed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The issue is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/dna "Symbiosis is one of the most rapidly growing fields in biology.... After decades of focusing on bacteria in pure culture, it is evident that to manage them for our benefit, we need to understand ...

Scientists track impact of DNA damage in the developing brain

...le-strand DNA damage affects the nervous system and offers a new focus for tracking the origins of neurological disease. The research also reflects growing scientific interest in damage to single strands of DNA. "A variety of human disease syndromes result from problems in the DNA-repair system," explaine...

Noise pollution negatively affects woodland bird communities, says CU-Boulder study

...ings with implications for the fate of ecological communities situated amid growing urban clamor. The study also is the first to indicate that at least a fe...th critical links to ecosystems, are crucial in maintaining biodiversity in growing areas of landscapes disturbed by urban clamor," said Francis. ...