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UCSB scientists probe sea floor venting to gain understanding of early life on Earth

New keys to understanding the evolution of life on Earth may be found in the microbes and minerals vented from below the ocean floor, say scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The UCSB scientists are making new contributions to this field of inquiry in their studies of seafloor hydrothermal fluid discharge into the Earth's oceans, which has been occurring ever since t...

Researchers discover way to make cells in the eye sensitive to light

Researchers have discovered a way to makelight sensitive cells in the eye by switching on a single gene.According to research published online today in Nature, the team fromImperial College London and the University of Manchester, havediscovered that activating the melanopsin gene in the nerve cellscauses them to become light responsive, or photoreceptive. Usingmouse cells, the resea...

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...

Columbia research lifts major hurdle to gene therapy for cancer

Researchers at Columbia University MedicalCenter have discovered a way to overcome one of the major hurdles ingene therapy for cancer: its tendency to kill normal cells in theprocess of eradicating cancer cells.In a new study published in the Jan. 25 issue of the Proceedings of theNational Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the researchers demonstrated thatthe technique works by incorporating it i...

Neuronal 'traffic jam' marks early Alzheimer's disease

Early Alzheimer's disease may be precipitated by a "traffic jam" within neurons that causes swelling and prevents proper transport of proteins and structures in the cells, according to new studies by Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers. In mouse models of Alzheimer's disease and in human brain samples from people with the disease, researchers observed a characteristic breakdown in...

Mouse brain cells rapidly recover after Alzheimer's plaques are cleared

Brain cells in a mouse model of Alzheimer'sdisease have surprised scientists with their ability to recuperateafter the disorder's characteristic brain plaques are removed.Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louisinjected mice with an antibody for a key component of brain plaques,the amyloid beta (Abeta) peptide. In areas of the brain whereantibodies cleared plaque...

Researchers find how protein allows insects to detect and respond to pheromones

University of Washington TechTransferrecently licensed software that will give scientists a huge advantagein the fight against disease.The software, known as Rosetta, predicts how proteins fold, informationthat is highly valuable to biological and biomedical researchers.UW Tech Transfer's Digital Ventures licensed Rosetta software withoutcharge to the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB), a...

Researchers Uncover Key Step In Manufacture of Memory Protein

A cellular enzyme appears to play a crucial role in the manufacture of a protein needed for long-term memory, according to a team of researchers led by scientists at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health. The protein is known as mBDNF, which stands for mature brain-derived neurotrophic factor. In an earlier study, another team of...

Research advances quest for HIV-1 vaccine

Scientists have uncovered new information that may help guide design of vaccines for HIV-1, the virus that causes AIDS. A new detailed structural analysis of the complex formed by an anti-HIV antibody called 4E10 and its specific target provides insight into why this particular antibody is so broadly effective, a rare characteristic for HIV discovered thus far. The research is published in the Fe...

HIV Patients May Be at Risk of Heart Problems When Taking Protease Inhibitor Drugs

A widely-used class of drugs that keep the HIV-virus infection from progressing to AIDS may cause serious and potentially lethal heart rhythm disturbances in some patients. The finding of a Mayo Clinic-led investigation appears in the current edition of The Lancet. In collaboration with colleagues from the HIV Program of Hennepin County Medical Center, Minneapolis; the University of Minn...

Research on Worms Yields Clues on Aging

Humanityhas been looking for a "Fontaine de Jouvence" forever; a way to slow orstop aging. While its still nowhere to be found, we are makingprogress; in worms. Researchers found that an epilepsy drug used inhumans had the unexpected effect of prolonging the life span of C.Elegans: A class of anti-seizure medications slows the rate of aging inroundwo...

Learning to fight an adversary that won't stay down

New biomolecular technologies have largely failed to deliver the hoped-for knockout punch breakthrough against the defences of disease-causing bacteria, says a leading Canadian specialist in antibiotic resistance. Techniques such as genomic sequencing and high throughput screening were expected to make the development of new antibiotic compounds easier and more productive. But in most cas...

U of M researcher examines newly emerging deadly disease

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have identified a newly emerging illness, named staphylococcal purpura fulminans. The disease begins as a respiratory tract infection, which then is infected by Staphylococcus aureus. The infection then moves to the lungs, making superantigens (bacterial toxins that activate large numbers of T cells), often leading to death due to hypertension and shock....

NYU researchers simulate molecular biological clock

For many years, DNA and proteins have beenviewed as the real movers and shakers in genomic studies, with RNA seenas little more than a messenger that shuttles information between thetwo. But researchers from Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Researchand Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered that smallRNA molecules called microRNAs regulate thousands of human genes--morethan...

Researchers reveal the infectious impact of salmon farms on wild salmon

A new study published in the March 30th edition of the prestigious scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B (a publication of the UK's national academy of science) shows that the transfer of parasitic sea lice from salmon farms to wild salmon populations is much larger and more extensive than previously believed. This quantitative analysis of parasite transfer is a scientific...

New Clues Add 40,000 Years to Age of Human Species

Nearly 40 years after an historic anthropology expedition to Ethiopia's Lake Turkana basin, researchers have uncovered evidence suggesting human bones found at that time are roughly 195,000 years old. The researchers believe the findings may bolster the “Out-of-Africa?hypothesis that suggests we all trace to an ancient line that first evolved in Africa and then displaced other hominids as recent...

New imaging method gives early indication if brain cancer therapy is effective, U-M study shows

A special type of MRI scan that measures the flow of water molecules through the brain can help doctors determine early in the course of brain cancer regimen if a patient's tumor will shrink, a new study shows. Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center developed the assessment, which they call a functional diffusion map. They used a magnetic resonance imaging sc...

Researchers identify target for cancer drugs

For nearly a decade, scientists have been trying to fully understand a particular communication pathway inside of cells that contributes to many malignant brain and prostate cancers. While scientists have identified elements of this pathway, other key components have remained a mystery. Researchers at Whitehead Institute now have discovered a missing puzzle piece, a finding that may present drug...

First 'atlas' of key brain genes could speed research on cancer, neurological diseases

Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institutehave compiled the first atlas showing the locations of crucial generegulators, or switches that determine how different parts of the braindevelop ?and, in some cases, develop abnormally or malfunction.The scientists say the map will accelerate research on brain tumors andneurological diseases that result from mutations in these switch genes?called...

New research questions basic tenet of neuron function

New findings by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center challenge one of the established views of how nerve cells communicate with one another. Every time we move, feel emotions, think or remember, the nerve cells, or neurons, in our body transmit messages to one another via chemical signals called neurotransmitters. Within neurons are tiny organelles called synaptic vesicles that s...

Vital step in cellular migration described by UCSD medical researchers

A vital molecular step in cell migration, the movement of cells within the body during growth, tissue repair and the body's immune response to invading pathogens, has been demonstrated by researchers in the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine. Published in the March 27 online edition of Nature Cell Biology and the journal's upcoming April print edition, the study describ...

Weill Cornell Research Reveals Secrets Of Trafficking Within Cells

As you read this, cells in your eye are transmitting information to your brain, while cells in your heart and arteries work just as hard to keep that brain alive. Every one of these cells -- and others throughout the body -- depends on an internal process called endocytosis to keep the flow of cellular nutrients and information healthy and strong. It's an incredibly important life process,...

ASU researchers finds novel chemistry at work to provide parrot's vibrant red colors

Parrots, long a favorite pet animal, are attractive to owners because of their vibrant colors. But those colors may mean more to parrots than what meets the eye. For more than a century, biochemists have known that parrots use an unusual set of pigments to produce their rainbow of plumage colors, but their biochemical identity has remained elusive. Now, an Arizona State University researc...

UCSD researchers maintain stem cells without contaminated animal feeder layers

The growth and maintenance of human embryonic stem cells in the absence of contaminated animal products has been demonstrated by University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine researchers in the Whittier Institute, La Jolla, California. Published in the April 2005 issue of the journal Stem Cells, the study shows that laboratory culture media enriched by a human protein calle...

Researchers discover molecule that causes secondary stroke

Scientists at the University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Medicine have discovered the cause of a deadly type of secondary stroke known as cerebral vasospasm. A constriction of the blood vessels in the brain, cerebral vasospasm usually occurs three to 10 days following a massive brain bleed known as hemorrhagic stroke. Sixty percent of patients who survive the initial stroke develop vasos...

Researchers find missing genes of ancient organism

Yale scientists report in the journal Nature that the "missing" genes for tRNA in an ancient parasite are made up by splicing together sequences in distant parts of the DNA genome. The research led by Professor Dieter Söll in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale focuses on the most ancient organism with a known genome sequence. Nanoarchaeum equitans, is a member...

Researchers trace evolution to relatively simple genetic changes

In a stunning example of evolution at work, scientists have now found that changes in a single gene can produce major changes in the skeletal armor of fish living in the wild. "Our motivation is to try to understa...

Researchers add new tool to tumor-treatment arsenal

A new study demonstrates the potential effectiveness of treating tumors by combining agents that damage DNA with a drug that sensitizes cancer cells to these agents. The research, led by George Thomas, PhD, professor at the University of Cincinnati's (UC) Genome Research Institute, and Heidi Lane of Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, appears in the March 25, 2005, issue of the jo...

Why do insects stop 'breathing'? To avoid damage from too much oxygen, say researchers

A new study investigating the respiratory system of insects may have solved a mystery that has intrigued physiologists for decades: why insects routinely stop breathing for minutes at a time. Challenging previous theories, researchers at UC Irvine and Humboldt University propose that insects such as grasshoppers, moths, butterflies, some types of fruit flies, beetles and bugs close off th...

Research Gives Hope For Liver Damage

Millions of patients suffering from liverdamage (cirrhosis) and failure may benefit from research by theUniversities of Edinburgh and Southampton which may lead to newlife-saving treatments. There is currently no cure for liver cirrhosisand a patient's only hope of survival is to receive a liver transplant.The Edinburgh scientists from the University's Centre for InflammationResearch, in co...

New protein discovered by Hebrew University researchers

Researchers at the Hebrew University ofJerusalem have succeeded in discovering and isolating a new proteinfrom the poplar tree with special structural and qualitativecharacteristics that could have consequences for development of futurenanocapsules for drug delivery to cancer cells.In addition to being obtained from plant tissue, the protein can nowalso be produced in large quantities as a...

First real-time view of developing neurons reveals surprises, say Stanford researchers

Scientists have believed that neurons need a long period of fine-tuning and training with other neurons before they take on their adult role. But after using new technology for the first time to watch these cells develop, a team of researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine found that neurons come into this world with a good idea about what they'll become as adults. The work...

New research indicates a 'troubled' greenhouse is brewing

Climates like those of the movie "Monsoon Wedding" may extend more widely into Africa, North America and South America, according to a University of Oregon geologist's analysis of an ancient greenhouse event. "We know the gathering greenhouse will be warm, but this new information confirms that the contrast between the rainy season and the dry season will increase dramatically," says Greg...

Research Using Mouse Models Reveals A Novel Key Player In The Initiation Of Colon Cancer

Gastric and colorectal cancers account for more than 1 million deaths worldwide every year and several research groups have been working to identify the molecular events that result in the initiation and progression of these tumors. It has been established that interfering with the function of one gene, called Adenomatous Polyposis Coli (APC) has a profound effect on the cells lining the innermos...

NJIT Presidential Award winner takes stem cell research another step

Treena Arinzeh, a young professor who last year won a Presidential Award, the nation's highest scientific honor, is bringing the promise of stem cell research one step closer to reality. Arinzeh, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at NJIT, is researching the use of stem cells to induce bone repair. Her research will help diabetics whose impaired bones will not properly heal...

Bird Brains Show How Trial and Error May Contribute to Learning

The adult male zebra finch knows only one scratchy tune learned in its youth, which it performs repeatedly and intensely when females are listening. But occasionally, the finch might improvise, experimenting with a slower, more sultry variation or emphasizing different notes. Neurobiologists studying the finch now say the improvisation arises from a component of a crucial learning circuit...

Agilent Technologies releases automated literature search tool for biology researchers

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) today released an automated literature search tool for the multidisciplinary study of biological systems. The tool is available as a free plug-in to Cytoscape 2.1, an open-source bioinformatics platform that enables researchers to form a visual map of complex biological networks, increasing their understanding of molecular pathways and the biological causes of...

UF Researchers Map Bacterial Proteins That Cause Tooth Loss

The human mouth teems with millions of enamel-eroding, gum-inflaming microbes. Now scientists have...

UCSD team discovers specialized, rare heart stem cells in newborns

The first evidence of cardiac progenitor cells ?rare, specialized stem cells located in the newborn heart of rats, mice and humans ?has been shown by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine. The cells are capable of differentiation into fully mature heart tissue. Called isl1+ cells, these cardiac progenitor cells are stem cells that have been progr...

In the migratory marathon, parasitized monarchs drop out early

A little-stud...