life

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...

The transparent organism: EMBLEM and Carl Zeiss give labs a unique look at life

A novel high-tech microscope will be brought to the marketplace, giving laboratories everywhere fascinating new insights into living organisms. EMBLEM Technology Transfer GmbH (EMBLEM), the commercial entity of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), announced today that it has signed a licensing deal with technological leader Carl Zeiss to commercialize a new technology called SPIM (Se...

Scientists decipher genome of fungus that can cause life-threatening infections

In a project that already has benefited animportant field of biomedical research, scientists have deciphered thegenomes of two closely related strains of Cryptococcus neoformans, afungus whose importance as a human pathogen has risen in parallel withthe HIV/AIDS worldwide epidemic and the increased use ofimmunosuppressive therapies.The study, posted online January 13 in Science Express, rev...

The Shapes Of Life: NIGMS Project Yields More Than 1,000 Protein Structures

The Protein Structure Initiative (PSI), a national program aimed at determining the three-dimensional shapes of a wide range of proteins, has now determined more than 1,000 different structures. These structures will shed light on how proteins function in many life processes and could lead to targets for the development of new medicines. The PSI is a 10-year, approximately $600 million pr...

UCSD discovery may help extend life of natural pesticide

A team led by biologists at the University of California, San Diego has discovered a molecule in roundworms that makes them susceptible to Bacillus thuringiensis toxin, or Bt toxin--a pesticide produced by bacteria and widely used by organic farmers and in genetically engineered crops to ward off insect pests. Their findings should facilitate the design and use of Bt toxins to prevent ins...

The very unexpected life and death of a leukemic cell

B cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is an incurable disease in which cells in the bone marrow grow and survive to the point where they become abnormal and malignant (leukemic). The progression of the disease is slow and there has been a lack of information regarding the rate of production of CLL cells, and the time-course of their death. For years, doctors and scientists believed th...

Kinovate Life Sciences Launches Nittophase?High Performance Solid Support For Oligonucleatide Synthesis

Kinovate Life Sciences, Inc, a provider of tools for oligonucleotide synthesis and gene delivery, announced today that it will officially launch its new NittoPhase?solid support for oligonucleotide synthesis at the TIDES meeting commencing in Boston on May 1st. The joint development of this solid phase support product was announced on November 8th, 2004 by Kinovate’s sole shareholder, Nitto Denko...

US life expectancy about to decline, researchers say

A team of researchers led by University of Illinois at Chicago professor S. Jay Olshansky is predicting a decline in life expectancy in the United States later this century. Th...

A frog's life is food for thought

Starvation, malnutrition and re-feeding can have deadly consequences for humans and most animals but not Australia's green-striped burrowing frog. PhD student Rebecca Cramp from The University of Queensland has found that unlike most animals, which can't digest food after long periods of starvation, the green-striped burrowing frog is able to absorb nutrients 40 percent more effectively a...

Robot-based system developed at Carnegie Mellon detects life in Chile's Atacama desert

A unique rover-based life detection system developed by Carnegie Mellon University scientists has found signs of life in Chile's Atacama Desert, according to results being presented at the 36th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference March 14-18 in Houston. This marks the first time a rover-based automated technology has been used to identify life in this harsh region, which serves as a test bed f...

Affymetrix Licenses Microfluidics Technology From Caliper Life Sciences

Caliper Life Sciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: CALP) and Affymetrix, Inc. (Nasdaq: AFFX) today announced that Caliper has issued Affymetrix a non-exclusive license to use a portion of Caliper's microfluidics patent estate with Affymetrix' GeneChip(R) microarray technologies. The license extends to the manufacture and sale of GeneChip brand products in all areas of application, including research, diagnosti...

Solutions that reduce death of marine life reeled in by International Smart Gear Competition

As the world prepared to observe Earth Day, World Wildlife Fund and its partners in the International Smart Gear Competition announced three new winning solutions to prevent the accidental maiming and killing of marine mammals, juvenile fish, and sea turtles that become ensnared by fishing nets and longlines--a problem known as bycatch--while also improving the efficiency of commercial fishing.</...

Report that delayed motherhood decreases life expectancy of mouse offspring

The June 2005 issue of Biology of Reproduction includes a special paper by a team of Spanish scientists indicating that delayed motherhood in mice results in shorter life expectancy and reduced body weight in their offspring. Negative effects of late maternal age in women, such as abnormal numbers of chromosomes in their children, are well known. However, other potential negative effects o...

Hydrogen and methane provide raw energy for life at 'Lost City'

The hydrothermal vents were miles from where anyone could have imagined. One massive seafloor vent was an unheard of 18 stories tall. And all were creamy white and gray, suggesting a very different composition than vent systems studied since the 1970s. Scientists who named the spot Lost City knew they were looking at something never seen before when the field was serendipitously discovere...

TrueBlue Archive Will Store Raw Life Sciences Data for Proteomics and Drug Testing

A new book, Biological Weapons Defense: Infectious Disease and Counterbioterrorism, deals with the intentional causality of disease. Published by Humana Press, this text is also available in e-Book. Many of the contributors come from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), the nation's premier biodefense laboratory. In this 624-page, hardcover text edite...

Ebola virus: from wildlife to dogs

Since 1976 the Ebola virus has caused some lethal human epidemics in Central Africa. Research now indicates that humans do not become directly contaminated from the animal reservoir, which is an any case still unknown, but from infected carcasses of chimpanzees, gorillas and certain forest antelopes. Results have come from work conducted over the past several years by IRD scientists and their par...

Innovative coating could give medical implants a longer life

By mimicking an adhesive protein secreted by mussels and a polymer that repels cells and proteins, researchers at Northwestern University have designed a versatile new two-sided coating that could breathe life into medical implants. Currently the longevity of certain medical implants suffers because bacteria, cells and proteins in the body gradually accumulate on the devices (known as fou...

Breakthrough System for Understanding Ocean Plant Life Announced

Sixty million people in 36 countries of sub-Saharan Africa are threatened daily by a deadly parasitic disease known as African sleeping sickness. The disease is caused by organisms called trypanosomes, which are spread by the tsetse fly. African sleeping sickness affects approximately 500,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa, a quarter of whom will die this year. Because the trypanosome has an except...

NASA probe could reveal comet life, scientists claim

Cardiff (UK) scientists are playing a major role in a NASA mission, which they believe could reveal living matter in the icy layers beneath the surface of a comet. NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft will make a historic encounter with Comet Tempel-1 on 4th July, when a metre-long projectile will crash into the comet and tunnel through its outer layers, producing a crater and a plume of gas and...

Life detection instrument passes key test on road to Mars

The dry, dusty, treeless expanse of Chile's Atacama Desert is the most lifeless spot on the face of the Earth, and that's why Alison Skelley and Richard Mathies joined a team of NASA scientists there earlier this month. The University of California, Berkeley, scientists knew that if the Mars Organic Analyzer (MOA) they'd built could detect life in that crusty, arid land, then it would hav...

Census of Marine Life explorers surprised by diversity, density of Arctic creatures

A historic expedition of Census of Marine Life explorers to the planet's most northern reaches has revealed a surprising density and diversity of Arctic Ocean creatures, some believed new to science. Sheltered for millennia under a lid of ice currently one to 20 meters thick, unexpectedly high numbers and varieties of large Arctic jellies, squid, cod, and other animals have been found thri...

Map of life on Earth could be used on Mars

A geologist from Washington University in St. Louis is developing new techniques to render a more coherent story of how primitive life arose and diverged on Earth ?with implications for Mars. Carrine Blank Ph.D., Washington University assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, has some insight concerning terrestrial microbes that could lead to provocative conclusi...

Researchers extend mouse lifespan by protecting against free radicals

Scientists at the University of Washington and their colleagues at other research centers have found a way to significantly extend the lifespan of mice while reducing the impact of the aging process. Their study, which will be published online by the journal Science on May 5, lends more credence to the free-radical theory of aging. The theory suggests that very reactive chemicals, called "...

Caloric restriction won't dramatically extend life span in humans: UCLA research

Severely restricting calories over decades may add a few years to a human life span, but will not enable humans to live to 125 and beyond, as many have speculated, evolutionary biologists report. "Our message is that suffering years of misery to remain super-skinny is not going to have a big payoff in terms of a longer life," said UCLA evolutionary biologist John Phelan. "I once heard some...

Fluorescing lab worms signal longer life spans

University of Colorado at Boulder scientists have used a fluorescent marker to predict the individual life spans of identical worms that were genetically engineered to illuminate stress levels, implying living organisms have "hidden physiological states" that dictate their ability to deal with the rigors of life. According to CU-Boulder Research Associate Shane Rea, the genetically identic...

Divergent life history shapes gene expression in brains of salmon

Scientists working with salmon have found that gene expression in the brain can differ significantly among members of a species with different life histories. Their study indicates that roughly 15 percent of Atlantic salmon genes show differential expression in males who migrate from their freshwater birthplaces to mature in oceans versus those who do not leave the freshwater environment to matur...

New lifespan extension genes found

New genes tied to lifespan extension in yeast have been identified by researchers from UC Davis and Harvard Medical School. Drastically reducing calorie intake, or caloric restriction, is known to extend the lifespan of species including yeast, worms and rodents. Previous research linked a gene called Sir2 with lifespan extension due to caloric restriction, but worms and yeast that lack Si...

Secrets of the deep may hold key to life on other planets

Leeds researchers use NERC grant to understand extreme sea creaturesExtraordinary creatures who inhabit extreme underwater conditions are being investigated by University scientists in a three-year project. These deep-sea communities could reveal an evolutionary history different to anything else on earth and even give us clues to how life could exist onother planets. The creatures live a...

HIV Therapy Greatly Extends Life of Key T Cells, Scientists Find

Interleukin-2 (IL-2), an immune-boosting drug used experimentally in HIV therapy, greatly increases the lifespan of certain subsets of immune system T cells in some HIV-positive people who respond to this therapy, discovered researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the NIH. A report desc...

UCLA scientists strengthen case for life more than 3.8 billion years ago

Ten years ago, an international team of scientists reported evidence, in a controversial cover story in the journal Nature, that life on Earth began more than 3.8 billion years ago--400 million years earlier than previously thought. A UCLA professor who was not part of that team and two of the original authors will report in late July that the evidence is stronger than ever. Craig E. Mann...

Microbe has huge role in ocean life, carbon cycle

Researchers at Oregon State University and Diversa Corporation have discovered that the smallest free-living cell known also has the smallest genome, or genetic structure, of any independent cell - and yet it dominates life in the oceans, thrives where most other cells would die, and plays a huge role in the cycling of carbon on Earth. In nature, apparently, bigger is not always better.</...

Digging in the dirt for life's biochemical foundations

It seems a mighty feat for a microscopic fungus built from threadlike filaments. But collectively, these spindly mushroom relatives help move several billion tons of nutrients out of the soil and into plants each year. Now, new Michigan State University-supported research on the movement of nitrogen brings into sharper focus this underground process at the root of nearly all of Earth's food chain...

Secret sex life of killer fungus?

Aspergillus fumigatus is a medically important fungus, causing potentially life-threatening infections in patients with weakened immune systems. It is also a major cause of respiratory allergy, and it is implicated in asthma as well. The fungus has always been thought to lack the ability to reproduce sexually, but new discoveries by a multinational group of scientists indicate that the fungus has...

Life-extending protein keeps blood sugar in check

A protein that extends lifespan in yeast, worms, and flies keeps blood sugar under control in mice, reports a new study in the August Cell Metabolism. The findings suggest therapeutic interventions for the prevention and treatment of metabolic disorders, such as type 2 diabetes, which frequently arise with age, the researchers said. The team found that mice with an excess of the protein Si...

Evolution of life on Earth may hold key to finding life in outer space

Questions about the existence of life in outer space may have a surprisingly close-to-home answer, according to one University of Houston professor. Understanding how life evolved on Earth is important in obtaining clues as to where else in the universe one might find life and what it might be like, said George E. Fox, a UH professor of biology and biochemistry. Fox is finishing work on a...

Life's origins were easier than was thought

In the primordial soup that produced life on earth, there were organic molecules that combined to produce the first nucleic acid chains, which were the first elements able to self-replicate. According to one of the more accepted theories, these molecules were ribonucleic acid (RNA) chains, a molecule that is practically identical to DNA and that today has the secondary role in cells of copying in...

Controlling wildlife trade key to preventing health crises, study says

According to a study by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, controlling the movements of wildlife in markets is a cost-effective means of keeping potential deadly pandemics such as SARS and influenza from occurring. The study appears in the July edition of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. The cost of controlling the spread of diseases afflicting both human and animal popula...

New book expands biological classifications to account for 'alien' life

What would you call an alien if you encountered it on the street tomorrow? What if that alien didn't come from another world but rather was created in a laboratory right here on Earth and functioned differently from other Earth life? Either way, Peter Ward has the beginnings of an answer. In a new book, the University of Washington paleontologist puts forth an expanded "tree of life," or b...

Scientists unpick genetics of first 15 minutes of life

Scientists have identified the gene responsible for controlling a first key step in the creation of new life, according to new research published in the journal Nature tomorrow (Thursday 27 October 2005). The gene, known as HIRA, 'chaperones' the early processes that take place once a sperm enters an egg, giving it a crucial role in the most fundamental process in sexually reproducing anim...

Scientists crack 40-year-old DNA puzzle and point to 'hot soup' at the origin of life

A new theory that explains why the language of our genes is more complex than it needs to be also suggests that the primordial soup where life began on earth was hot and not cold, as many scientists believe. In a paper published in the Journal of Molecular Evolution this week, researchers from the University of Bath describe a new theory which they believe could solve a puzzle that has baf...