detail in Biological News

Researchers discover critical detail of cellular defense against genetic mistakes

Researchers are closing in on a completed diagram of how human cells protect themselves against constant genetic mistakes that contribute to most diseases, according to a study to be published in the April 18 edition of the journal Cell. The blueprint for the human body is encoded in genes. ...

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...

UC San Diego engineer provides insights to decades-old DNA squabble

...ques called coarse-graining," Arya explained. "You cannot simulate something as large as a chromatin fiber containing tens of nucleosomes at molecular detail for periods of time longer than a few nanoseconds. That will not tell you much. You need to reduce the complexity of the system without sacrificing im...

Research shows rates of severe childhood obesity have tripled

...ervices proposed the new classification in 2007. The research by Skelton and colleagues is the first of its kind to use the new classification and detail the severity of the problem. They found that the prevalence of severe obesity tripled (from 0.8 percent to 3.8 percent) in the period from 1976-80 to ...

DOE-funded research projects win 46 R&D 100 Awards for 2009

...ate=Today Compact Gamma Camera This high-resolution nuclear medical probe can pinpoint the locale of cancer tissue in the prostate gland in detail at an early stage. Diagnosis is easier using the gamma camera, rather than conventional ultrasound imaging, because the camera can more easily detect ...

Chasing tiny vehicles

...orts them towards the cell nucleus the ultimate target for the gene. The research team is now in a position to characterize and describe in great detail the individual steps along this path. "Our new approach has also revealed bottlenecks in nanoferry transport," Bruchle reports. "We saw, for example, ...

Munich researchers discover new target for tailored antibiotics

...sor Michael Groll, Dr. Jrg Eppinger, and Dr. Tobias Grwert, biochemists at the Technische Universitt Mnchen, and their research team have described in detail the structural basis for just such a reaction step. The cells of virtually all life forms synthesize essential natural substances belonging to the ...

Systems biology recommended as a clinical approach to cancer

...d techniques that can disrupt the progression of the disease. They discuss three case studies related to diagnostics, therapy, and drug development in detail to demonstrate how a systems-level view can provide important insights related to the disease. The examples, which involve cases of breast cancer, B-c...

Sustainable bioenergy project has global launch

...ommittee. "Most analyses involving biofuels have been undertaken within a largely business-as-usual context. In particular, none have explored in any detail on a global scale what could be achieved via complementary changes fostering graceful coexistence of food and biofuel production." The second stage ...

OJ worse for teeth than whitening says Eastman Institute researchers

...range juice markedly decreased hardness and increased roughness of tooth enamel. Unlike ever before, researchers were able to see extensive surface detail thanks to a new focus-variation vertical scanning microscope. "The acid is so strong that the tooth is literally washed away," said Ren, whose finding...

Who goes abroad for fertility treatment and why?

... possibility of embryo freezing", she said. In another study, Professor Guido Pennings from the University of Ghent, Ghent, Belgium, looked in more detail at the situation in his own country. 16 out of the 18 Belgian reproductive medicine centres which were licensed to handle oocytes and create embryos...

Improved method developed to test carcinogen risk

...y said. "The key is that now we have animal models that can far more accurately determine the real cancer risk some compounds pose, and in biochemical detail that's more valuable than the kill-them-and-count-them approaches of the past." "It may be time for government agencies and medical researchers to ...

7th annual [BC]2 Basel Computational Biology Conference 'Molecular Evolution' June 18-19, 2009

...demy of Sciences. He is best-known for his long-term experimental evolution project on E. coli. In his address, Professor Lenski will describe in more detail recent findings in this project providing new insights on the dynamic coupling of phenotypic and genomic evolution and the role of complex mutations i...

Gene evolution process discovered

...ences: "This is the first study of the human genome to look at REST in such detail and compare the specific genes it regulates in different species. We've fo...some significant gaps in this knowledge, but has also explained some of the detail behind the process of natural selection, which Darwin correctly identified,...

Story tips from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, June 2009

... will give biologists the third dimension they need to study cells in great detail and it allows them to interact with a cell to see how it reacts to various ...neering Division. Specifically, Mann notes that the level of resolution and detail in images obtained with this new method clearly exceed those available toda...

Study: Illegal fishing harming present and future New England groundfish fisheries

...mental economists Dr. Dennis King of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and Dr. Jon Sutinen of the University of Rhode Island detail nearly a doubling of the percent of total harvest taken illegally over the last two decades in the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery (NEGF). T...

Small molecules mimic natural gene regulators

...said Mapp, who has a joint appointment in the College of Pharmacy's Department of Medicinal Chemistry. Next the researchers want to understand in more detail exactly how the small molecules bind to that site. "Then we'll use that information to design better molecules." ...

Sweden to host 1.3 billion Euro research center

...t advanced centre for materials research, enabling scientists to study the atomic and molecular arrangement of a huge range of materials at a level of detail never before achieved. Costing in the region of 1.3bn, the ESS will surpass facilities currently in operation in Japan and the US, and will allow ...

Conservationists seek to identify prime stopover sites for migrating birds

...migrant birds, such as wood warblers, vireos and thrush. They will spend 30 minutes walking along a 300-meter transect, documenting every bird-related detail they see and hear within a 25-meter-wide path on either side of a flagged line. The volunteers will make their observations between dawn and four hour...

UC Riverside professor receives top scientific honor

...mong pioneers of genetic engineering of disease-resistant mosquitoes for the purpose of mosquito control. Raikhel has deciphered in great molecular detail a chemical chain reaction and genes which prompts disease-spreading mosquitoes to produce and mature their eggs. Manipulation of this process may be k...

What's protected, what's not?

...the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, seeks to provide the guidance and resources necessary to maintain protected lands data with greater accuracy and detail than previously possible," said John Mosesso, a USGS scientist involved with the project. The first version of PAD-US contains information concerni...

Genetic switch potential key to new class of antibiotics

...tery. Riboswitches have not yet been found in human cells, and the hope is future riboswitch drugs will kill bacteria without side effects." Study detail Riboswitches typically work by turning off the ability of an mRNA to decode its genetic message. Specifically, the current study looked at the preQ...

Former NASA astronaut Bonnie J. Dunbar to speak at NJIT's biomedical engineering seminar

...ow a flight museum president, will speak at NJIT on April 23, 2009. The public is invited to attend this exciting free event during which Dunbar will detail how she made it into the world of flight. The event will be held at 11:30 a.m., on Thursday, April 23, 2009, in 118 Kupfrian Hall. Event sponso...

The story of X -- evolution of a sex chromosome

...Genomics. Bachtrog, UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellow Jeffrey D. Jensen and former UC San Diego post-doc Zhi Zhang, now at the University of Munich, detail their findings in this week's edition of the open-access journal PLoS Biology . "In our manuscript, we demonstrate for the first time the flip sid...

HIV dearms protective protein in cells

...t affect protection against infection in animals," said Dr. Christine Goffinet, first author of the study. Rat model now to be improved This detail is important when one wants to imitate and study HIV infection in rats in an animal model the infection in rats does not follow the same course as in...

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev signs collaborative contract with Bayer CropScience

... identify genes that allow plants to tolerate the harsh environmental stresses characteristic of arid regions. Two of these genes have been studied in detail and the team found that by removing either of the two genes, the tolerance of the model plant, Arabidopsis, to heat, salt and drought could be increas...

Rhythmic genomics -- the yeast metronome and the walk of life

...these important cell housekeepers." Ian Roberts, Curator of NCYC, said "Yeasts are everywhere around us in nature and industry. This extra level of detail allows us to resolve important differences between yeasts and gain maximum benefits from their use in food, drink and healthcare." ...

West Nile virus studies show how star-shaped brain cells cope with infection

...sicians new ways to reduce deadly responses to viral infections of the brain and spinal cord. In the report, scientists from Columbia University, NY, detail for the first time the chemical processes that star-shaped nerve cells, called astrocytes, use to handle invading viruses and to summon other immune c...

Eye cells believed to be retinal stem cells are misidentified

...cells into the eye to regenerate photoreceptors lost to blindness." In their studies, Dyer and his colleagues analyzed the sphere-forming cells in detail to determine whether they were really retinal stem cells. Painstaking microscopy studies of each cell in the spheres revealed all were pigmented and h...

You don't call, you don't write: Connectivity in marine fish populations

...n the marine environment." This DNA parentage analysis allowed Thorrold and his colleagues to map and calculate the dispersal of 122 clownfish with detail never before achieved in the marine fish populations. Because they knew the exact locations of both the natal anemone and the anemone in which the juv...

Hopkins scientists ID 10 genes associated with a risk factor for sudden cardiac death

...s of samples, says Chakravarti: "We're not very good at predicting what happens to any one, single sample. It's sort of like, I could examine in great detail how important my vote was in the last election, but it's trivial compared to the collective vote. An individual's genome is important as part of the s...

New edition available for essential virology reference

...ng immune responses and vaccinology, diagnostics, antivirals, and the nascent field of gene therapy. The second provides agent-specific chapters that detail the virology, epidemiology, pathogenesis, clinical manifestations, laboratory diagnosis, and prevention and treatment of important viral pathogens. ...

Synthesizing the most natural of all skin creams

.... Prof. Joke Bouwstra, a specialist in the skin barrier and its synthesis at Leiden University, and her colleague Robert Rimann set out to study VC in detail and has produced a synthetic version of this natural buttery ointment which shows the same structure and unique properties. As well as helping pre-ter...

New 'pollution radar' developed to provide unprecedented picture of urban smog

...llite Technology Ltd, the University of Leicester and EADS Astrium are behind the technology that can be placed on satellites to provide unprecedented detail of gases in the atmosphere. The researchers are also developing ground-based instruments this year, which will be able to create 3D maps of atmosph...

Geologists map rocks to soak CO2 from air

...y where ultramafic rocks are most abundant. Another rock, common volcanic basalt, also reacts with CO 2 , and efforts are underway to map this in detail as well. The U.S. Department of Energy has been working on a basalt atlas for the northwestern United States as part of its Big Sky Carbon Sequestrati...

Cellulosic biofuel technology will generate low-cost green fuel, says major study

...They include a major paper in which Laser et al carry out a comparative analysis of 14 of the mature technology biomass refining scenarios outlined in detail in the preceding expert papers, looking at each process for efficiency, environmental impact and process economics. "We conclude that mature bioma...

Scientists discover why teeth form in a single row

...e normal row, missing teeth and cleft palate, and the new insights suggest ways to combat these malformations. The current study adds an important detail to the understanding of the interplay between biochemicals that induce teeth formation, and others that restrict it, to result in the correct pattern....

'Fattysaurus' or 'thinnysaurus'? How dinosaurs measure up with laser imaging

..."This study will help us in our research on how dinosaurs ran in 3-D rather than 2-D as in previous studies. "Reconstructing more dinosaurs in such detail will allow us to examine changes in body mass and particularly centre of mass as they evolved. As we know, dinosaurs evolved into birds. As they did ...

NASA-funded carbon dioxide map of US released on Google Earth

... Interactive maps that detail carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion are now available on t...in different formats into one comprehensive data product. The fine level of detail offers more accuracy for estimating the fossil fuel contribution to the glo...

Special issue of BMC Microbiology spotlights standardized language for describing microbes

... in an attempt to highlight these similarities across a diverse set of microbes." The first paper in the BMC Microbiology supplement describes in detail progress made in the community-driven effort to develop this resource. Another paper looks at how effector molecules from diverse microbes get into ce...