feat

Research into how prions act in the brain could hold the key to defeating diseases

Scientists at the University of Southampton are continuing their pioneering research into diseases such as Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease (CJD) and related conditions caused by tiny particles known as prions, thanks to a £300,000 grant from the Medical Research Council. So far, there have been 148 deaths from confirmed or probable variant CJD (vCJD) in the UK. This is the human disease thought...

Compound might defeat African sleeping sickness, clinical trial beginning this month

One of the most devastating diseases in sub-Saharan Africa almost disappeared in the late 1950s. That disease, African sleeping sickness, or trypanosomiasis, largely succumbed to heroic public health efforts -- including relocating entire villages. But in the past several decades, because of post-colonial turmoil, the catastrophic illness has come back to ravage parts of Angola, the Democratic Re...

Researcher examines polymers created with poultry feathers

Biodegradable polymers created from poultry feathers may add value to the poultry industry and help solve the growing environmental problem of plastic waste. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, more than 29 million tons of non-biodegradable plastic waste ends up in landfills each year. Justin Barone, associate professor of biological systems engineering at Virginia Tech,...

Simple explanation for complex pattern of feather development

Biologists testing a mathematical model of the mechanism birds use to control the growth of complex feathers found that plumed feather structures involve the coordination of at least two genes that activate and that inhibit barb growth. "Understanding these mechanisms of feather growth gives a whole new perspective on the unique beauty of feathers," said Richard Prum, senior author on the...

No small feat: First ever gene therapy success for muscular dystrophy achieved

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh report the first study to achieve success with gene therapy for the treatment of congenital muscular dystrophy (CMD) in mice, demonstrating that the formidable scientific challenges that have cast doubt on gene therapy ever being feasible for children with muscular dystrophy can be overcome. Moreover, their results, published in this week's online edi...

DNA from feathers tells tale of eagle fidelity

A trail of feathers led a team of Purdue University scientists to confirm that eagles from central Asia are quite possibly the most faithful of birds. By performing DNA analysis on the feathers left behind at nesting sites, the researchers were able to identify individual Eastern imperial eagles in a nature reserve in Kazakhstan. Their analysis showed that not one adult strayed from its ma...

Molecular mechanism of feather formation found

Feathers are the essence of birds. Without them, birds could not fly or attract mates. But how exactly do feathers form molecularly? Experimentally testing one current hypothesis, developmental biologists at University of Wisconsin Medical School believe they now have the answer. In a previous study, UW anatomy professor John F. Fallon and his team showed that Sonic hedgehog (Shh) and bone...

Did feathered dinosaurs exist?

New evidence raises questions about current theoryBiologists examining evidence for the claim that birds evolved from dinosaurs have reached some surprising new conclusions. However, they caution that "the problem of avian origins is far from being resolved." Their analysis is published online October 10, 2005 in the Journal of Morphology, published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and available vi...

USC researchers track down the stem cells that create feathers

The stem cells that produce bird feathers have been visualized and analyzed for the first time, signifying the initial step in a scientific journey that may ultimately shed light on human organ regeneration. The research, published in the December 15 issue of the journal Nature, was performed by a group of prominent stem-cell researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of the University o...

Insects that produce males from unfertilized eggs reveal a surprising cellular feat

Scientists have long known that the social insects in the order Hymenoptera--which includes ants, bees, and wasps--have an unusual mechanism for sex determination: Unfertilized eggs develop into males, while fertilized eggs become females. But the development of an unfertilized egg into an adult (called parthenogenesis) remains a mysterious process. One mystery has been the origin of the...

U-M researchers take new approach to defeating Gram-negative bugs

Ronald Woodard's team set out looking for a way to kill a stubborn type of bacteria and they succeeded---but not in the way he expected. Woodard is senior author of an article describing way he and his...

Breast stem cells have features similar to 'basal' tumors

The most aggressive form of breast cancer may originate from breast stem cells that have undergone genetic mishaps. Victorian Breast Cancer Research Consortium scientists from The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, using mouse models, have discovered that breast stem cells do not express receptors for the female hormones oestrogen or progesterone. These and otherfeatures of the stem cell re...

Biodegradable napkin -- featuring sensitive nanofibers -- may quickly detect biohazards

Detecting bacteria, viruses and other dangerous substances in hospitals, airplanes and other commonly contaminated places could soon be as easy as wiping a napkin or paper towel across a surface, says a researcher from Cornell University. "It's very inexpensive, it wouldn't require that someone be highly trained to use it, and it could be activated for whatever you want to find," said Marg...

Embryonic patterning makes the feathers fly

How the chicken got its feathers in the right place is not a Rudyard Kipling “Just So?story, but an illustration of how simple causes can stack up into complicated results. For a chicken, it’s the difference between having feathers arranged in spots or stripes. For biologists at the University of Southern California and mathematicians at Oxford University in the UK, it’s all a question of pattern...

NYU scientists identify how development of different species uses same genes with distinct features

Biologists at New York University have identified how different species use common genes to control their early development and alter how these genes are used to accommodate their own features. The findings, which were discovered by researchers in Professor Claude Desplan’s and Steve Small’s laboratories in NYU’s Center for Developmental Genetics, offer new insight into the workings of developmen...

Trojan horse strategy defeats drug-resistant bacteria

A new antimicrobial approach can kill bacteria in laboratory experiments and eliminate life-threatening infections in mice by interfering with a key bacterial nutrient, according to research led by a University of Washington scientist. The joint project, conducted at the UW, the University of Iowa, and the University of Cincinnati, will be featured in the April 2 issue of the Journal of Clinical...

Loss of a universal tRNA feature reported

Scientists at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) report in the Journal of Bacteriology that two alphaproteobacteria lack the universal extra guanylate nucleotide typically found in the transfer RNA molecule tRNAHis. tRNAs are the molecules responsible for decoding sequence information specified by messenger RNA molecules, information which is ultimately encoded by the DNA template....

Automatic identification of protein's critical features from the structure

How we look is of the greatest importance nowadays since it express who we are, but is it really possible to tell the essence of an individual from its form? The answer to that question seems to be related to fashion and glamour, yet a group of scientists from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico and the Buck Institute in the USA, were able to address it, although motivated by other reason...