OTS

Quantum Dots Research Leads to New Knowledge about Protein Binding in Plants

UC Riverside researchers from the Departmentsof Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Mechanical Engineering andBotany and Plant Sciences have worked together to discover a way toutilize to uncover new knowledge about the binding of a protein at the growingpollen tube tip. This protein plays a critic...

Scientists discover the cellular roots of graying hair

Few things about growing older are asinevitable and obvious as “going gray,?yet scientists have been unableto explain the precise cause of this usually unwelcome transformation.In a report posted today on the Web site of the journal Science,researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children’s HospitalBoston say they have found the cellular cause of graying hair whileinvestigating th...

Biodiversity hotspots identify conservation priorities

The new book Hotspots Revisited identifies 34 regions worldwide where 75 percent of the planet's most threatened mammals, birds, and amphibians survive within habitat covering just 2.3 percent of the Earth's surface (roughly equivalent to the combined areas of the five largest U.S. states). This habitat originally covered 15.7 percent of the Earth's surface, an area equivalent in size to Russia a...

Roots Engage in Underground Chemical Warfare

In addition to providing physical support and taking in nutrients, plant roots secrete a wide variety of compounds that affect other nearby roots, as well as insects and microbes. But because it goes on unseen, bactericidal root activity has not been extensively investigated—until now. Using the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, a relative of garden-variety cabbage, Jorge Vivanco and co-workers a...

Scientists take 'snapshots' of enzyme action

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, the New York Structural Biology Center, and SGX Pharmaceuticals, Inc., have determined the atomic crystal structure and functional mechanism of an enzyme essential for eliminating unwanted, non-nutritional compounds such as drugs, industrial chemicals, and toxic compounds from the body. The detailed mechanism of action...

Quantum dots provide a faster, more sensitive method for detecting respiratory viral infections

In what may be one of the first medical uses of nanotechnology, a chemist and a doctor who specializes in infectious childhood diseases have joined forces to create an early detection method for a respiratory virus that is the most common cause of hospitalization among children under five. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) sends about 120,000 children to the hospital in the United States e...

The roots of civilization trace back to ... roots

About five to seven million years ago, when the lineage of humans and chimpanzees split, edible root plants similar to rutabagas and turnips may have been one of the reasons. According to research by anthropologists Greg Laden of the University of Minnesota and Richard Wrangham of Harvard University, the presence of fleshy underground storage organs like roots and tubers must have sustained our a...

UW-Madison scientists zero in on drugs' sweet spots

Employing a simple new technique to manipulate the sugars that power many front-line drugs, a team of Wisconsin scientists has enhanced the antic-cancer properties of a digitalis, a drug commonly used to treat heart disease. Reporting the work in the Aug. 8 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team led by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of pharmaceuti...

HIV-infected adults in Botswana respond positively to ARV therapy public treatment program

With preliminary results from a study in Botswana, Harvard School of Public Health researchers have found that people with HIV-1 subtype C in resource-poor settings, who receive antiretroviral (ARV) therapy, can achieve comparable results to those in the developed world. A fully supported health care delivery system and infrastructure help ensure this success, according to data published in Novem...

New nanosensor uses quantum dots to detect DNA

Using tiny semiconductor crystals, biological probes and a laser, Johns Hopkins University engineers have developed a new method of finding specific sequences of DNA by making them light up beneath a microscope. The researchers, who say the technique will have important uses in medical research, demonstrated its potential in their lab by detecting a sample of DNA containing a mutation lin...

High resolution 'snapshots' detail dynamics of a cocaine antibody

Cocaine-binding antibodies have shown some promise in their ability to neutralize cocaine toxicity, but their binding ability is severely impaired by high concentrations of the drug. A catalytic monoclonal antibody such as 7A1, on the other hand, has the ability to regenerate after each new dose of the drug, making it far more effective than others in metabolizing cocaine. The study, which...

Two NIH initiatives launch intensive efforts to find roots of common diseases

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced the creation of two new, closely related initiatives to speed up research on the causes of common diseases such as asthma, arthritis and Alzheimer's disease. One initiative boosts funding at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a multi-institute effort to identify the genetic and environmental underpinnings of common...

Medieval diaries aid scientists ascertain increase in hot spots due to global warming

The temperature of the northern hemisphere has increased over a larger area in the last century than at any time in the past millennium a report published in Science reveals this week. The study finds that the number of 'hot spots' has increased dramatically in the Northern Hemisphere in the last century compared to the past 1200 years - adding to the growing evidence of wide-scale global...

Connect the Quantum Dots

A new study, published today in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has significant implications for the design of disease markers and the development of chemoreceptors used in human biomedical research. The groundbreaking study, entitled, "A Mechanism to Signal Receptor-Substrate Interactions with Luminescent Quantum Dots", demonstrates that quantum dots can...

Chimpanzee study reveals genome variation hotspots

Researchers believe that dynamic regions of the human genome -- "hotspots" in terms of duplications and deletions -- are potentially involved in the rapid evolution of morphological and behavioral characteristics that are genetically determined. Now, an international team of researchers, including a graduate student and an associate professor from Arizona State University, are finding simi...

Snakes' virtual glasses, leopard spots and all-optical transistors

Even in the dark, snakes on a plane (at least those of the pit viper and boa varieties) could keep a close watch on terrorized passengers and crew thanks to small cavities near their snouts known as pit organs. The organs are sensitive to the infrared radiation emitted by warm prey such as rats, rabbits, and Samuel L. Jackson. An optical analysis of pit organs suggests that snakes shouldn't be ab...

Robots manipulating animal behaviour

Little larger than a thumbnail, the cubic insect-like robots or 'insbots' are technological marvels. Developed under the European Commission's Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) initiative of the IST programme as the project Leurre, the insbots are fitted with two motors, wheels, a rechargeable battery, several computer processors, a light-sensing camera and an array of infrared proximity sen...

Quantum dots reviewed -- Could these nanoparticles hold the cure to cancer?

The worlds of medical and biological research are abuzz with the promises offered by nanoparticles known as semiconductor quantum dots. These Quantum Dots (QDs) have unique optical and electronic properties that make them suitable for breakthrough treatments such as the detection and destruction of cancer cells. Just released on the nanotechnology website AZoNano, is a comprehensive r...

Telemedicine robots help improve health

University of Queensland telemedicine researchers are using a robot named Eliza to conquer the tyranny of distance and improve delivery of specialist medical care to the bush. The wireless robots can be wheeled to the bedside o...

Archerfish tune their shots to universal properties of prey adhesion

Archerfish exhibit the remarkable ability to hunt for insects and other small terrestrial animals by firing precisely aimed streams of water that knock prey onto the water's surface. These water shots were once thought to be all-or-none in quality, but researchers have now discovered new levels of sophistication in the archerfish's hunting strategy that shed light on how this impressive predatory...

Hotspots of mercury contamination identified in eastern North America

A US and Canadian research team surveying mercury contamination in fish and birds in the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada has identified five "hotspots" where concentrations of the element exceed those established for human or wildlife health. The team focused on levels of the potent neurotoxin in yellow perch and common loons, but it also took into account contamination in othe...

Male owls pitch their hoots to advertise body weight to competitors

Why do male owls hoot? Researchers from the Centre d'Études Biologiques de Chizé (France) and the University of Sussex (UK) have studied the vocal communication of male European Scops owls, one of the smallest living species of nocturnal raptors. The study, published in the April issue of the American Naturalist, was conducted between June 2003 and June 2005 on the isle of Oléron, off the west co...

Genetic roots of bipolar disorder revealed by first genome-wide study of illness

The likelihood of developing bipolar disorder depends in part on the combined, small effects of variations in many different genes in the brain, none of which is powerful enough to cause the disease by itself, a new study shows. However, targeting the enzyme produced by one of these genes could lead to development of new, more effective medications. The research was conducted by scientists at...

Maggots rid patients of MRSA

University of Manchester researchers are ridding diabetic patients of the superbug MRSA - by treating their foot ulcers with maggots. Professor Andrew Boulton and his team used green bottle fly larvae to treat 13 diabetic patients whose foot ulcers were contaminated with MRSA and found all but one were cured within a mean period of three weeks, much quicker than the 28-week duration for th...

Antarctic icebergs -- Hotspots of ocean life

Global climate change is causing Antarctic ice shelves to shrink and split apart, yielding thousands of free-drifting icebergs in the nearby Weddell Sea. According to a new study in this week’s journal Science these floating islands of ice – some as large as a dozen miles across – are having a major impact on the ecology of the ocean around them, serving as “hotspots” for ocean life, with thri...