Lack in Biological News

Overeating and obesity triggered by lack of BDNF

BOSTON (December 27, 2007) According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, close to one-third of the population in the United States is obese and another third is overweight. Excessive weight gain is elicited by alterations in energy balance, the finely modulated equilibrium between c...

First-ever study: lack of critical lubricant causes wear in joints

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] Mice that dont produce lubricin, a thin film of protein found in the cartilage of joints, showed early wear and higher friction in their joints, a new study led by Brown University researchers shows. This link between increased friction and early wear in joi...

Obesity and lack of exercise could enhance the risk of pancreatic cancer

PHILADELPHIA Obesity and aversion to exercise have become hallmarks of modern society and a new study suggests that a blood protein linked to these lifestyle factors may be an indicator for an increased risk of developing pancreatic cancer. Researchers from the Dana Farber Cancer Institute repor...

Higher carbon dioxide, lack of nitrogen limit plant growth

Earth's plant life will not be able to "store" excess carbon from rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels as well as scientists once thought because plants likely cannot get enough nutrients, such as nitrogen, when there are higher levels of carbon dioxide, according to scientists publishing in th...

Advances in lung cancer research announced at conference

...re available at www.shc.org/content.asp?lnavid=39 . "TH-302 is a new, novel, small molecule that is activated when cells are under conditions that lack oxygen, which is a metabolic condition characteristic of cancer cells," Dr. Weiss said. "We are excited to continue investigations with TH-302 and abo...

Protein handlers should be effective treatment target for cancer and Alzheimer's

...a mouse that over expresses heat shock factor 1, or Hsf1, a major activator of molecular chaperones. They are now focusing on developing mice that lack molecular chaperones or heat shock factors in targeted areas, such as liver or breast tissue, as well as mice in which these can be removed during can...

More than half of Texas physicians do not always recommend HPV vaccine to girls

...d the vaccine than those who did not consider these sources valuable. "Most physicians are aware of the vaccine and what it prevents, but they may lack knowledge about issues of safety and how to address parental concerns. That may be making them reluctant to deliver the vaccine," said Kahn. Altho...

K-State researchers say after-school programs should promote activity, healthy nutrition

..., which was designed to prevent obesity by enhancing the quality of after-school programming. The study found that some existing after-school programs lack in quality and do not provide adequate nutrition or physical activity, especially for different genders and fitness levels. The HOP'N After-School ...

New hope for fisheries

...the result of those meetings. "Prior to this study, evaluations of the status of world fish stocks and communities were based on catch records for lack of a better alternative. Results were controversial because catch trends may not give an accurate picture of the trends in fish abundance," explains A...

National assessment done on potential invasive snail and slug pests in US

...ture inspection officials, in their efforts to keep such invasive pest species out of the country. "The study is preliminary because of the serious lack of basic knowledge of many of these potentially invasive species," said Cowie, chair of the Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology graduate progr...

Scientists uncork a potential secret of red wine's health benefits

...is, peritonitis, and systemic sepsis. "Strong acute inflammatory diseases such as sepsis are very difficult to treat and many die every day due to lack of treatment," said Alirio Melendez, senior lecturer on the faculty of medicine at Glasgow Biomedical Research Centre in Scotland and one of the resea...

U of M study identifies risk factors of disordered eating in overweight youth

...al tendencies, such as reading magazine articles about dieting, reporting a lack of family connectedness, placing a high importance on weight, and reporting...d by their non-overweight peers due to strong social pressures to be thin. lack of family connectedness, including not eating family meals together, was fo...

Experimental treatment halts hypoxic-ischemic brain injury in newborns

...roscience , the scientists show blocking the brain enzyme, tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA), prevents progressive brain damage triggered by the lack of oxygen and blood supply. The experimental pre-clinical treatment involved putting a naturally occurring substance called plasminogen activator inhi...

Maternal, paternal genes' tug-of-war may last well into childhood

... CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 28, 2009 -- An analysis of rare genetic disorders in which children lack some genes from one parent suggests that maternal and paternal genes engage in a subtle tug-of-war well into childhood, and possibly as late as the on...

Comprehensive look at rare leukemia finds relatively few genetic changes launch disease

...nes. The study also reports cryptic chromosomal translocations in 14 percent of patients in this study who, based on standard testing, appeared to lack such re-arrangements. Cryptic translocations are too small to be detected by conventional testing. Downing said the analysis identified focal CNAs adj...

Disease threat may change how frogs mate

...ts; finding that despite inbreeding there has been no subsequent increase in relatedness in these populations. Dr Teacher's conclusion is that this lack of relatedness has been caused by a change in the frogs' mating strategy. With diseased frogs struggling to mate, healthy frogs are likely to be matin...

Ants more rational than humans

...o "choose" a nest, when offered two options with very similar advantages. What the authors found is that in collective decision-making in ants, the lack of individual options translated into more accurate outcomes by minimizing the chances for individuals to make mistakes. A "wisdom of crowds" approach...

High construction cost for cycads

...s is repeated the plant effectively starves to death. This work continues to propel forward the Cycas research that is based in Guam. The general lack of physiology research on Cycas species is a limitation to our understanding of this important plant group. Every comprehensive written text on Cyc...

Warming climate threatens California fruit and nut production

...e species or varieties that do not demand as much winter chill. There are also agricultural chemicals that can be used to partially make up for the lack of sufficient chilling in many crops, such as cherries. A better understanding of the physiological and genetic basis of plant dormancy, which is stil...

Stuff of stink bombs investigated for role in pregnancy

... the Reproductive Sciences Section, Department of Cancer Studies and Molecular Medicine. A recent publication in the field reported that mice that lack a key enzyme that produces hydrogen sulphide had high blood pressure, so it seems certain that interest in hydrogen sulphide will continue to grow. ...

Frost & Sullivan: North American Government Biometrics Markets Thrive With Active R&D Thrust

...igh on the priority list of biometric vendors remain optimal security, user friendliness, non-invasiveness, and low cost. Observations reveal that the lack of standardization, insufficient awareness, and long sales cycles impede adoption of biometrics technology. Historically, fingerprint recognition tech...

K-State plant pathologists develop online teaching modules used globally

...food supply and economy is a challenge for agriculturalists around the world. Sparsely stocked libraries, scarce and expensive software, and even a lack of materials in students' native languages are barriers to training plant pathologists in resource-poor regions. But the work of a Kansas State Uni...

Exploring standards to advance microbial genomics

...l genomes have been sequenced over the past 15 years, nearly a quarter of them by DOE JGI, he noted that the data obtained has been compromised by the lack of standards for so many critical procedures in the field, procedures ranging from simple data exchange to gene finding, function prediction, and meta...

When it comes to brain damage, blankets take the place of drugs

...laced. Though warming the skin does not reduce shivering in all patients, Kramer concludes that "its simplicity, low cost, widespread availability, lack of adverse effects, and the potential to avoid sedation ... make it an attractive treatment option." ...

Battle of the sexes benefits offspring, says research

... Parents compensate for a lazy partner by working harder to bring up their offspring, but not enough to completely make up for the lack of parenting, says research by bird biologists at the University of Bath. In nature, it is quite rare for both parents to be involved in raising yo...

Genetically engineered mice yield clues to 'knocking out' cancer

...hibited significant accumulation of two lesions called formamidopyrimidines in the DNA of the liver, kidney and brain. This indicates that there was a lack of DNA repair in these organs. During the second year of life, both types of mice also developed pulmonary and hepatocellular (liver cell) tumors. ...

Triggering muscle development -- a therapeutic cure for muscle wastage?

...d by growth hormone (GH) in order to release MGF. Since there is a natural decrease in the levels of this hormone as we age, this may combine with the lack of intensive physical activity to cause muscle wasting in elderly people. "The downside", warns Dr. Goldspink, "is that MGF has great potential for ...

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

... survival," said John E. Niederhuber, M.D., NCI director. "The critical limiting factor to date in validating biomarkers for clinical use has been the lack of standardized technologies and methodologies in the biomarker discovery and validation process, and this research may solve that dilemma." The c...

New guide to tropical seedlings: Essential to climate change research

...5 years ago at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. Garwood's guide greatly simplifies the process of identifying seedlings, which lack brightly colored flowers, fruit and other distinguishing adult characteristics. Richly illustrated by Margaret Tebbs, the guide includes descriptions ...

Study characterizes eczema patients most at risk for dangerous viral infections

...chanism for the increased susceptibility to viral skin infections. An emerging model of eczema highlights the importance of skin-barrier defects and a lack of antimicrobial proteins among eczema patients. The skin-barrier defect is believed to result in the greater allergic sensitization among eczema pati...

Gene predicts how brain responds to fatigue, human study shows

...netically resilient showed expanded brain activity, the study found. The findings help explain individual differences in the ability to compensate for lack of sleep. "The extent to which individuals are affected by sleep deprivation varies, with some crashing out and others holding up well after a nigh...

Measuring intellectual disability

...Current tests for fragile X syndrome determine the presence of the mutation by measuring the number of repeats at the DNA and mRNA level; however, the lack of a quantifiable test to determine FMRP protein levels has prevented direct correlation between FMRP protein levels and clinical severity of disease....

Lack of happiness hormone serotonin in the brain causes impaired maternal behavior in mice

... A lack of serotonin, commonly known as the "happiness hormone", in the brain slows the growth of mice after birth and is responsible for impaired maternal be...

Tips from the journals of the American Society for Microbiology

...echnology at preventing diseases in humans. VLPs resemble their live-virus counterparts and are readily processed by the immune system, however, they lack the RNA required for virus replication. In this study researchers generated VLPs from the structural proteins of the 1918 H1N1 virus and compared...

Study highlights massive imbalances in global fertilizer use

...le solutions also will require a lot more scientific data, they added. "Our lack of effective policies can be attributed, in part, to a lack of good on-farm data about what's happening with nutrient input and loss ov...

Beaked, bird-like dinosaur tells story of finger evolution

...se examination of the fossil shows that its upper and lower jaws were toothless, demonstrating that the dinosaur possessed a fully developed beak. Its lack of teeth, short arms without sharp claws and possession of gizzard stones suggest that it was a plant-eater, though it is related to carnivorous dinos...

Chemical in blood may explain susceptibility to bladder pain

...her urological illnesses. He and colleagues used infrared microspectroscopy to tell the difference between blood samples indicating the presence or lack of disease based on the samples' molecular profiles. Infrared spectroscopy identifies the biochemical content of a blood sample based on where peaks o...

Tracking down the causes of multiple sclerosis

... the protein MOG, which is found on the surface of brain cells. To the amazement of the neuroimmunologists, however, these cells also attack mice that lack MOG. "This finding was completely unexpected, since the T cells should not really attack anything in the absence of MOG", says Krishnamoorthy. The sol...

Rutgers research tackles childhood epilepsy

...ers, The State University of New Jersey. "Clearly there is a pressing need to come up with new strategies for treatment." D'Arcangelo's mutant mice lack a gene (Pten) that suppresses cell growth in some neurons, resulting in these mutants displaying molecular, cellular and physiological traits of corti...

Researchers create freestanding nanoparticle films without fillers

... fabrication to drug delivery, solid state lighting to flexible television and computer displays. Until now these films have had a common problem: lack of cohesion. Nanoparticles typically consist of an inorganic core coated with a thin layer of organic molecules. These particles are not very sticky s...