Wake

Brain-mapping technique aids understanding of sleep, wakefulness

The power of a new technique to map connections among nerve cells in the brain has a UT Southwestern Medical Center scientist dreaming of solving the mysteries of sleep. By tracking which nerve cells in the mouse brain stimulate others, researchers in Japan and at UT Southwestern found that a type of neuron responsible for keeping animals awake receives inhibitory signals from neurons act...

Wake Forest scientists find new combination vaccine effective against plague

Plague, a bacterium that ravaged Europe in the Middle Ages and is today one of the most feared potential agents of bio-terrorism, may have met its match, according to Wake Forest University School of Medicine scientists. Steven B. Mizel, Ph.D., principal investigator, told the American Gastroenterological Association meeting in Chicago that when mice immunized with a new combination vaccin...

Freeze-dried mats of microbes awaken in Antarctic streambed

An experiment in a dry Antarctic stream channel has shown that a carpet of freeze-dried microbes that lay dormant for two decades sprang to life one day after water was diverted into it, said a University of Colorado at Boulder researcher. The results showed the resilience of life in the harsh polar environment, where temperatures are below freezing for most of the year and glacial...

Health of Acehnese reefs in the wake of the tsunami shows human impacts more harmful

According to research reported this week in Current Biology, tsunami damage to coral reefs closest to the epicenter of the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake was occasionally spectacular, but surprisingly limited, particularly when compared to damage from chronic human misuse in the region. Less than 100 days after the tsunami of December 26, 2004, a team of ecologists from James Cook Univer...

New mechanism explains glucose effect on wakefulness

One of the body's basic survival mechanisms is the neural machinery that triggers the hungry brain to the alertness needed for seeking food. That same machinery swings the other way after a hearty meal, as exemplified by the long and honored custom of the siesta. However, scientists have understood little about how the basic energy molecule, glucose, regulates such wakefulness and other energy-re...

A simple feedback resistor switch keeps latent HIV from awakening

Upon entering a cell, a virus often becomes dormant, turning off its genes and laying low until awakened by som e trigger from its environment. When that trigger is pulled, the virus quickly ramps up production of proteins through built-in positive-feedback loops that turn up gene transcription. (In positive feedback, production of something stimulates more production of that thing, resulting in...

Researchers wake up viruses inside tumors to image and then destroy cancers

Researchers have found a way to activate Epstein-Barr viruses inside tumors as a way to identify patients whose infection can then be manipulated to destroy their tumors. They say this strategy could offer a novel way of treating many cancers associated with Epstein-Barr, including at least four different types of lymphoma and nasopharyngeal and gastric cancers. In the March 1 issue of Cl...