TOS

Genes In The Interferon System Important In Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Two genes with very strong associations withthe disease systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have been identified bya team of scientists headed by researchers at the Department of MedicalSciences at Uppsala University. The findings are being published todayon the Web page of the highly prestigious American Journal of HumanGenetics. "These findings are probably the first genetic pieces of ahug...

Emory Eye Center Implants Its First Retinal Chips In Patients With Retinitis Pigmentosa

An expanded clinical trial conducted by Optobionics Corporation involving the implantation of a retina mircrochip has allowed Emory Eye Center and the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Rehabilitation Research & Development Center to implant the device in several patients. The patients all have retinitis pigmentosa with moderate-to-severe vision loss. Three centers in the United States have been chosen...

Photos show jaguar vamping for camera

He's beautiful and he knows it. A male jaguar recently acted like he was on a fashion runway in Manhattan, rather than his home in Kaa-Iya National Park in Bolivia, when it plopped down in front of a remote "camera trap" and allowed a remarkable 35 pictures to be taken over a five-and-a-half hour period. Two days earlier, the same cat languished for 90 minutes, when 19 photos were shot. Bi...

Potential treatments for neurofibromatosis

Neurofibromatosis can leave its patients miserable and debilitated with chronic itching or pain from disfiguring tumors. Infants affected by the disease face possible paralysis or damage to the brain and other organs. The disease frustrates doctors because there's no effective treatment even though the responsible gene was identified more than a decade ago. Currently little can be done to...

Virus-host interactions at sea effect global photosynthesis

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) today announced that it has for the first time released the chip design, probe sequence and annotation information for all of its microarrays. The release of this information is expected to improve cross-laboratory experimental research and cross-platform data comparison. "Full release of the probe sequences is an admirable and responsible position for A...

Revueltosaurus skeleton unearthed at Petrified Forest upsets dinosaur tale

The fossilized skeleton of a small crocodile relative excavated last year at Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona throws a wrench into theories of how and where the dinosaurs arose more than 210 million years ago at the end of the Triassic Period. The animal, one of many creatures from the Late Triassic known only from their teeth, was thought to be an ancestor of the plant-eating or...

Researchers use RNAi libraries to identify regulators of apoptosis and chemoresistance

When it comes to the deadly skin cancer melanoma, studying functional tissue rather than cell lines may better provide insight into the disease's development, according to new research from a Howard Hughes Medical Institute predoctoral fellow at Stanford University School of Medicine. Though multiple genetic alterations are associated with melanoma development, scientists have not been abl...

MERIS monitoring tracks planetary photosynthesis levels

Daily multispectral observations from Envisat's MERIS sensor are being combined with a sophisticated processing algorithm and powerful Grid computing to reveal global photosynthesis activity on land. This permits researchers to trace the state of health of terrestrial plant cover, identifying areas under stress and assessing damage from drought or fires. An algorithm developed by the Europ...

Naturally occurring asbestos linked to lung cancer

Everyday exposure to naturally occurring asbestos increases the risk of developing malignant mesothelioma, according to a study by UC Davis researchers. Exposure to asbestos in the workplace, particularly in shipyards, has long been recogn...

Lactose intolerance linked to ancestral environment

Got milk? Many people couldn't care less because they can't digest it. A new Cornell University study finds that it is primarily people whose ancestors came from places where dairy herds could be raised safely and economically, such as in Europe, who have developed the ability to digest milk. On the other hand, most adults whose ancestors lived in very hot or very cold climates that couldn...

Males with elevated levels of testosterone lead shorter lives but have more success siring offspring

Comparative studies have studied testosterone levels and related them to mating systems and aggression, but very few studies have attempted to relate testosterone to fitness, that is, the combination of lifetime reproductive success and survival, in the wild or experimentally. Over nine breeding seasons, Wendy Reed (North Dakota State University) and her colleagues followed a group of dark-eyed j...

Light-sensitive photoswitches could restore sight to those with macular degeneration

A research center newly created by the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) aims to put light-sensitive switches in the body's cells that can be flipped on and off as easily as a remote control operates a TV. Optical switches like these could trigger a chemical reaction, initiate a muscle contraction, activate a drug or stimulate a nerve cell...

Williams College biologist explores photosynthetic apparatus

The National Science Foundation has announced the award of $263,274 to Williams College biologist Claire Ting. It will support her work in exploring the structure, function and evolution of the photosynthetic apparatus in one of the most important marine primary producers of the world. Her project is titled "Photosynthetic Response to Abiotic Stress in Prochlorococcus, a Globally Importan...

Progress toward artificial photosynthesis?

Plants can do it: they simply grab carbon dioxide out of the air and covert it into biomass. In this process, known as photosynthesis, the plants use light as their energy source. Chemists would also like to be able to use CO2 as a carbon source for their synthetic reactions, but it doesn’t work just like that. A team headed by Markus Antonietti at the Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interf...

Chemo combination improves survival in asbestos-related cancer

People with mesothelioma ?a form of cancer associated with asbestos exposure ?have a higher survival rate when treated with a combination of two cancer drugs, a large multicenter study finds. In the study, p...

Sleep quantity affects morning testosterone levels in older men

The testosterone levels of healthy men decline as they get older. As sleep quality and quantity typically decrease with age, objectively measured differences in the amount of sleep a healthy older man gets can affect his level of testosterone in the morning, according to a study published in the April 1st issue of the journal SLEEP. The study, conducted by Plamen Penev, MD, PhD, of the Un...

Protein enables discovery of quantum effect in photosynthesis

When it comes to studying energy transfer in photosynthesis, it's good to think "outside the bun." That's what Robert Blankenship, Ph.D., professor of biology and chemistry in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, did when he contributed a protein to a study performed by his collaborators at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berk...

Puzzling plankton yield secrets to role in evolution/global photosynthesis

The analysis of DNA sequences from tiny green algae have provided new insights into the mystery of how new species of plankton evolve—and further highlights their critical role in managing the global cycling of carbon. These findings, by a group led by the DOE Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI); the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego; and the Pierre & Mari...

ASU research shows connection between testosterone, dietary antioxidants and bird coloration

In a new physiological study of birds, a researcher at Arizona State University has found that carotenoids, the pigments that color carrots orange and corn yellow, have even deeper health benefits than originally thought. They appear to fight off the negati...