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Fruit fly studies open new window on cancer research

Scientists studying the humble fruit fly have found a family of proteins that enhances the sensitivity of a cell to a hormone that can trigger abnormal growth and cancer. Their discovery could lead to a completely new approach to tackling some cancers and the development of new drugs to stop uncontrolled growth in a wide variety of tumour cells. The researchers at the University of Oxford,...

'Shifty-eyed' Monkeys Offer Window Into Brain's Social Reflexes

Neurobiologists at Duke University Medical Center have found the strongest evidence yet that monkeys show the same keen 'social reflexes' that humans do -- shifting their attention in response to the direction of gaze of another individual. The researchers said their findings mean that monkeys can provide a critically important animal model of how the brain controls what humans pay attention to i...

A new window into structural plasticity in the adult visual cortex

Neuroscientists have known for decades that the adult brain can reorganize neural pathways in response to new experiences, for example, by changing the firing pattern and responses of neurons. But it has remained an open question whether structural changes accompany this functional plasticity. In a new study published in the open-access journal PLoS Biology, Wei-Chung Allen Lee and colleagues rep...

Marine conservation organizations team up to conduct Indonesia coral reefs assessment

Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, Reef Check and World Conservation Union to examine damage to tsunami-affected coral reefs; mission set to start next week Three leading marine conservation organizations will complete an extensive survey next week along the west coast of Aceh Province, Indonesia, to determine the impact of last year's devastating earthquake and tsunami on the re...

Membrane research opens window to benefits for plants, humans

A wilting, water-starved houseplant and flood-covered crops have something in common. That knowledge, gleaned from spinach and researchers on two continents, potentially could open the gate to advances in both plant and human health. The research, which appeared online this month in advance of regular publication by the journal Nature, involved a tandem of basic-science firsts that offer i...

Cord blood cells may widen treatment window for stroke

An experimental treatment that spares disability from acute stroke may be delivered much later than the current three-hour treatment standard ?a potential advance needed to benefit more stroke victims. Researchers at the University of South Florida found that human umbilical cord blood cells administered to rats two days following a stroke greatly curbed the brain's inflammatory response,...

Indonesia - disaster relief aid in action

ISN's immediate response to this latest quake - to strike the Indonesian island of Java - was to call once again on its Renal Disaster Task Force (RDRTF). Under the leadership of Dr. Raymond Vanholder, the Task Force acted rapidly by sending two scouts to join a team from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The two Task Force members Dr. Arjan van der Tol, Nephrologist, (who also participated...

Creating a window on 'oceans in motion'

Scientists and resource managers could soon have a highly detailed picture of marine conditions and the migrations of fish and ocean animals throughout the world, according to international experts convening a landmark conference in Canada June 27-30. Academics, scientists and technical experts at the meeting aim to throw open a large, vivid new global window on marine life by expanding wo...

Many cleaners, air fresheners may pose health risks when used indoors

When used indoors under certain conditions, many common household cleaners and air fresheners emit toxic pollutants at levels that may lead to health risks, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Exposure levels to some of the pollutants ?and to the secondary pollutants formed when some of the products m...

Study offers window into human behavior, brain disease

UCSF scientists have identified a cell population that is a primary target of the degenerative brain disease known as frontotemporal dementia, which is as common as Alzheimer's disease in patients who develop dementia before age 65. Because the cells arose only recently in evolutionary history -- in a common ancestor of great apes and humans-- and are particularly abundant in humans, and...

Opening windows may be the best way of preventing transmission of airborne infection

A study of eight hospitals in Peru has shown that opening windows and doors provided ventilation more than double that of mechanically ventilated negative-pressure rooms and 18 times that of rooms with windows and doors closed. The researchers, led by Rod Escombe from Imperial College London, compared the airflow in 70 naturally ventilated clinical rooms such as respiratory isolation room...

Early exposure to indoor fungus molecules may protect infants against future allergies

Maybe being a fussy housekeeper isn’t such a good thing after all. The UC team found that infan...