into in Biological News

Joint research into an enzyme that causes genetic diseases

This release is available in Spanish . Researchers from CIC bioGUNE's Structural Biology Unit and Columbia University (New York) have conducted a joint research project, published in the prestigious scientific journal Structure , to gain in-depth knowledge of the structure of pyruvate ca...

New insights into health and environmental effects of carbon nanoparticles

A new study raises the possibility that flies and other insects that encounter nanomaterial "hot spots," or spills, near manufacturing facilities in the future could pick up and transport nanoparticles on their bodies, transferring the particles to other flies or habitats in the environment. The s...

Extraterrestrial platinum was 'stirred' into the Earth

A research program aimed at using platinum as an exploration guide for nickel has for the first time been able to put a time scale on the planet's large-scale convection processes. The research is reported in a Nature paper titled "Progressive mixing of meteoritic veneer into the early Earth's...

Maternal, paternal genes' tug-of-war may last well into childhood

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 28, 2009 -- An analysis of rare genetic disorders in which children lack some genes from one parent suggests that maternal and paternal genes engage in a subtle tug-of-war well into childhood, and possibly as late as the onset of puberty. This striking new variety of intr...

Penn-Wistar team gains insight into HIV vaccine failure

PHILADELPHIA (July 20, 2009) A team of researchers from The Wistar Institute and the University of Pennsylvania reports new evidence refuting a popular hypothesis about the highly publicized failure in 2007 of the Merck STEP HIV vaccine study that cast doubt on the feasibility of HIV-1 vaccines....

Study by NTU professors provides important insight into apoptosis or programmed cell death

A study by Nanyang Technological University (NTU)'s Assistant Professor Li Hoi Yeung, Assistant Professor Koh Cheng Gee and their team have made an important contribution to the understanding of the process that cells go through when they die. This process known as 'apoptosis' or programmed cell d...

Researchers gain insight into mechanism underlying Huntington's

LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 13, 2009) Researchers at the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center and Graduate Center for Toxicology (GCT) have gained new insight into the genetic mechanisms underlying Huntington's disease and other neurodegenerative or neuromuscular disorders caused by trinucleotide...

Domestication of Capsicum annuum chile pepper provides insights into crop origin and evolution

Without the process of domestication, humans would still be hunters and gatherers, and modern civilization would look very different. Fortunately, for all of us who do not relish the thought of spending our days searching for nuts and berries, early civilizations successfully cultivated many spec...

Discovery of a water snake that startles fish in a way that makes them flee into its jaws

Forget the old folk tales about snakes hypnotizing their prey. The tentacled snake from South East Asia has developed a more effective technique. The small water snake has found a way to startle its prey so that the fish turn toward the snake's head to flee instead of turning away. In addition, th...

Powerful nutrient cocktail can put kids with Crohn's into remission

Treating children with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) usually involves the same steroids-based medication prescribed to adults. But such treatments can have negative side effects for kids and teens dealing with IBD. Dr. Raanan Shamir of Tel Aviv University's Sackler School of Medicine and Sch...

Hypertension among lower-status employees lingers well into retirement

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) Retirement from some occupations may not provide relief from the potentially devastating health effects of work-related hypertension, according to a new study from UC Davis. Published in the June issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine , the study ...

Recruitment of reproductive features into other cell types may underlie extended lifespan in animals

In the sense that organisms existing today are connected through a chain of life through their parents, grandparents and other ancestors almost a billion years back to the first animals of the pre-Cambrian era, an animal's reproductive cells can be considered to be immortal. These germline cells...

Singapore scientists elected into National Academy of Sciences

Renowned Singapore-based cancer geneticists Neal Copeland, Ph.D., and Nancy Jenkins, Ph.D., who are among the top 50 most-cited biomedical scientists in the world today, have been elected into the prestigious National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Dr. Copeland, Executive Director of the Institute...

Slicing chromosomes leads to new insights into cell division

ANN ARBOR, Mich.By using ultrafast laser pulses to slice off pieces of chromosomes and observe how the chromosomes behave, biomedical engineers at the University of Michigan have gained pivotal insights into mitosis, the process of cell division. Their findings could help scientists better unde...

Adult bone marrow stem cells injected into skeletal muscle can repair heart tissue

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- University at Buffalo researchers have demonstrated for the first time that injecting adult bone marrow stem cells into skeletal muscle can repair cardiac tissue, reversing heart failure. Using an animal model, the researchers showed that this non-invasive procedure increased...

Researcher garners major award from NIH for further exploration into the mechanisms of obesity

ATLANTA Timothy J. Bartness, Regents' Professor of Biology at Georgia State University, has received a multi-million dollar award from the National Institutes of Health to further research into the biological mechanisms of obesity. The prestigious Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) awar...

A new mouse model provides insight into genetic neurological disorders

Neurosensory diseases are difficult to model in mice because their symptoms are complex and diverse. The genetic causes identified are often lethal when transferred to a mouse. The lack of animal models slows progress in understanding and treating the diseases. By strategically altering a protein-...

University of Florida study provides insight into evolution of first flowers

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Charles Darwin described the sudden origin of flowering plants about 130 million years ago as an abominable mystery, one that scientists have yet to solve. But a new University of Florida study, set to appear next week in the online edition of the Proceedings of the Nati...

Scientists work to plug microorganisms into the energy grid

The answer to the looming fuel crisis in the 21st century may be found by thinking small, microscopic in fact. Microscopic organisms from bacteria and cyanobacteria, to fungi and microalgae, are biological factories that are proving to be efficient sources of inexpensive, environmentally friendly...

Researchers gain genome-wide insights into patterns of the world's human population structures

Through sophisticated statistical analyses and advanced computer simulations, researchers are learning more about the genomic patterns of human population structure around the world. Revealing such patterns provides insights into the history of human evolution, the predominant evolutionary forc...

Development of an artificial simulator of the nervous system to do research into diseases

This release is available in Spanish . Researchers of the University of Granada have developed a simulator, so-called EDLUT ('Event driven look up table based simulator'), which permits to reproduce any part of the body's nervous system, such as the retina, the cerebellum, the hearing c...

Scientists aim to bring indigenous people into climate change monitoring and policy

(ST. LOUIS): Scientists at the Missouri Botanical Garden are calling for the inclusion of indigenous peoples around the world in helping monitor the effects of global climate change and develop policy. In a special issue on traditional peoples and climate change in the May volume of " Global Env...

New phorid fly species turns red imported fire ants into 'zombies'

OVERTON Zombie fire ants may not sound like a cool thing, but wait a minute, said a Texas AgriLife Extension Service expert. On April 29, on the grounds of the Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Overton in East Texas, Dr. Scott Ludwig released fire ants infected with a new type of...

Cell's split personality is a major discovery into neurological diseases

Researchers at the Universit de Montreal (UdeM) and the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI), McGill University have discovered that cells which normally support nerve cell (neuron) survival also play an active and major role in the death of neurons in the eye. The findings, published this week i...

Flow of potassium into cells implicated in schizophrenia

A study on schizophrenia has implicated machinery that maintains the flow of potassium in cells and revealed a potential molecular target for new treatments. Expression of a previously unknown form of a key such potassium channel was found to be 2.5 fold higher than normal in the brain memory hub ...

New insight into Alzheimer's disease pathology

An Alzheimer's-related protein helps form and maintain nerve cell connections, according to a study published in the May 4 print issue of the Journal of Cell Biology and online at www.jcb.org . The protein, called presenilin, is mutated in many cases of inherited Alzheimer's disease. Althoug...

Stanford scientists turn adult skin cells into muscle and vice versa

In a study featured on the cover of the May issue of The FASEB Journal , researchers describe how they are able to reprogram human adult skin cells into other cell types in order to decipher the elusive mechanisms underlying reprogramming. To demonstrate their point, they transformed human skin c...

Smoke from cigarettes, cooking oil, wood, shift male cardiovascular system into overdrive

NEW ORLEANS (April 17, 2009) Secondhand tobacco smoke and smoke from cooking oil and wood smoke affected cardiovascular function of men and women who were exposed to small doses of the smoke for as little as 10 minutes, according to a study from the University of Kentucky. The study confirmed ...

Smoke from cigarettes, cooking oil, wood, shift male cardiovascular system into overdrive

NEW ORLEANS (April 17, 2009) Secondhand tobacco smoke and smoke from cooking oil and wood smoke affected cardiovascular function of men and women who were exposed to small doses of the smoke for as little as 10 minutes, according to a study from the University of Kentucky. The study confirmed ...

Singapore researchers first to transform carbon dioxide into methanol

Scientists at Singapore's Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) have succeeded in unlocking the potential of carbon dioxide a common greenhouse gas by converting it into a more useful product. In the international chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie , the IBN researchers repo...

New insights into progressive hearing loss

In parallel studies in human and mouse, two groups of researchers have come to the same conclusion: that a new kind of gene is associated with progressive hearing loss. The new gene - called a microRNA - is a tiny fragment of RNA that affects the production of hundreds of other molecules within se...

UC and partners awarded $23 million to transform discoveries into real-world health solutions

CINCINNATIThe University of Cincinnati (UC) and its affiliated health care partners will receive nearly $23 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to bring innovations from the laboratory bench to the bedside and to applications within the community. The five-year funding, awarded...

Weizmann Institute scientists develop a unique approach for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen

The design of efficient systems for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, driven by sunlight is among the most important challenges facing science today, underpinning the long term potential of hydrogen as a clean, sustainable fuel. But man-made systems that exist today are very inefficient an...

Stem cell breakthrough: Monitoring the on switch that turns stem cells into muscle

In a genetic engineering breakthrough that could help everyone from bed-ridden patients to elite athletes, a team of American researchersincluding 2007 Nobel Prize winner Mario R. Capecchihave created a "switch" that allows mutations or light signals to be turned on in muscle stem cells to monitor...

Turtles no longer turned into souvenirs

WASHINGTON DC, March 25, 2009 - Critically endangered hawksbill turtles are no longer being sold as tourist souvenirs in the Dominican Republic after a powerful government campaign cracked down on shops illegally trading such items. More than 99 percent of these souvenirs have been withdrawn or co...

UK robot sub searches for signs of melting 60 km into an Antarctic ice shelf cavity

Autosub, a robot submarine built and developed by the UK's National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, has successfully completed a high-risk campaign of six missions travelling under an Antarctic glacier. Autosub has been exploring Pine Island Glacier, a floating extension of the West Antarctic...

Turning sunlight into liquid fuels

Berkeley, CA - For millions of years, green plants have employed photosynthesis to capture energy from sunlight and convert it into electrochemical energy. A goal of scientists has been to develop an artificial version of photosynthesis that can be used to produce liquid fuels from carbon dioxide ...

Getting into hot water

An analysis of the engineering and economics for a solar water-heating system shows it to have a payback period of just two years, according to researchers in India. They report, in the International Journal of Global Energy Issues , on the success of the 1000-liter system operating at a universi...

The 'clean plate club' may turn children into overeaters

"Finish your broccoli!" Although parents may have good intentions about forcing their kids to eat cold, mushy vegetables, this approach may backfire the very next day, according to new research from Cornell University. "We found that the more controlling the parents were about telling their chi...

A new way to assemble cells into 3-D microtissues

BERKELEY, CA Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory can now control how cells connect with one another in vitro and assemble themselves into three-dimensional, multicellular microtissues. The researchers demonstrated their method by constructing a tail...