old in Biological News

A young brain for an old bee

We are all familiar with the fact that cognitive function declines as we get older. Moreover, recent studies have shown that the specific kind of daily activities we engage in during the course of our lives appears to influence the extent of this decline. A team of researchers from Technische Univ...

Scholar unconvinced new lie-detection methods better than old ones

CHAMPAIGN, lll. When a crime has been committed, the usual modus operandi for police detectives and their fictional counterparts has been to dust the scene for fingerprints. And once they have a suspect in custody, out comes the polygraph, or lie detector. But in today's forensically sophistic...

Newly discovered reactions from an old drug may lead to new antibiotics

A mineral found at health food stores could be the key to developing a new line of antibiotics for bacteria that commonly cause diarrhea, tooth decay and, in some severe cases, death. The trace mineral selenium is found in a number of proteins in both bacterial cells and human cells called sele...

Using 'dominance' to explain dog behavior is old hat

Contrary to popular belief, aggressive dogs are NOT trying to assert their dominance over their canine or human "pack", according to research published by academics at the University of Bristol's Department of Clinical Veterinary Sciences in the Journal of Veterinary Behavior, Clinical Applicatio...

Re-awakening old genes to help in the fight against HIV

A new vaginal cream containing a reawakened protein could someday prevent the transmission of HIV. Scientists at the University of Central Florida in Orlando have revived a dormant gene found in humans and coaxed it to produce retrocyclin, a protein that resists HIV. Lead scientist Alexande...

For old or young dialysis patients, AV fistulas remain pure gold

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (March 9, 2009)A new study shows that for those individuals with chronic kidney disease, it doesn't matter if you're young or old: arteriovenous (AV) fistulas remain the gold standard for maintaining access to one's circulatory system to provide life-sustaining dialysis. Interven...

New models question old assumptions about how many molecules it takes to control cell division

Blacksburg, Va. -- A single cell whether a yeast cell or one of your cells is exquisitely sensitive to its surroundings. It receives input signals, processes the information, makes decisions, and issues commands for making the proper response. As with any control system, noise errors, slip-ups,...

Arsenic and old toenails

Scientists from Leicester and Nottingham have devised a method for identifying levels of exposure to environmental arsenic by testing toenail clippings. Arsenic occurs naturally in the environment and people can be exposed to it in several ways, for example through contaminated water, food, d...

Myth about 'dirty old men' supported by science

Middle-aged men want younger women, often touting their intelligence and their high income. This is shown in research at Gothenburg University and Oxford University that studied 400 lonely hearts ads to see how men and women choose partners. Research in the theory of evolution includes a numbe...

70 years old and going strong with Down syndrome and no dementia

Washington, DC (August 18, 2008) In the world of Down syndrome, 'Mr. C' is a rarity. A real person whose progress has been tracked for the past 16 years, at seventy, 'Mr. C' has well surpassed the average life expectancy of a person with Down syndrome, currently in the late fifties, but in the te...

In scientific first, Einstein researchers correct decline in organ function associated with old age

(BRONX, NY) As people age, their cells become less efficient at getting rid of damaged protein resulting in a buildup of toxic material that is especially pronounced in Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and other neurodegenerative disorders. Now, for the first time, scientists at the Albert ...

Eat oily fish at least once a week to protect your eyesight in old age

Eating oily fish once a week may reduce age-related macular degeneration (AMD) which is the major cause of blindness and poor vision in adults in western countries and the third cause of global blindness, according to a study published today in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition . The...

2 years old -- a childhood obesity tipping point?

Over the last decade, childhood obesity has grown into an epidemic, reflected in soaring rates of type 2 diabetes and recommendations that pediatricians check toddlers for elevated cholesterol. What hasn't been as clear is how early to intervene. A study presented at a pediatric research pro...

Stem cell researchers give old muscle new pep

Berkeley - Old muscle got a shot of youthful vigor in a stem cell experiment by bioengineers at the University of California, Berkeley, setting the path for research on new treatments for age-related degenerative conditions such as muscle atrophy or Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. In a ne...

Grand Canyon may be as old as dinosaurs, says new study

New geological evidence indicates the Grand Canyon may be so old that dinosaurs once lumbered along its rim, according to a study by researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder and the California Institute of Technology. The team used a technique known as radiometric dating to show t...

Scientists discover 356 animal inclusions trapped in 100 million years old opaque amber

This release is available in French .

Chloroform provides clue to 150 year old medical puzzle

One of the earliest general anaesthetics to be used by the medical profession, chloroform, has shed light on a mystery thats puzzled doctors for more than 150 years how such anaesthetics actually work. A discovery described as true serendipity made by Leeds University PhD student Dr Yahya Bahn...

Taser Notices Intent to Serve Subpoena for Information on Old NIJ Tests in Taser v. Stinger

Fails to Disclose Test Dates in Press Release TAMPA, Fla., Feb. 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Stinger Systems, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: STIY) a leader in electro-stun technologies announced today that as required pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45(b)(1), Taser Internat...

Craniosynostosis minimally invasive surgery holds more promise than old procedure

COLUMBIA, Mo. Craniosynostosis, the premature fusion of the skull, is estimated to affect one out of every 2,000 babies. For the past several years, physicians have used two procedures to correct the problems. One procedure was to make an incision from ear to ear, strip back the scalp of the infa...

Stanford researchers say living corals thousands of years old hold clues to past climate changes

Using radiocarbon dating and samples of deep-sea corals snipped from the floor of the Pacific Ocean by a submersible, researchers from Stanford and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have discovered that deep-sea corals growing off Hawaii are much older than previously thoughtsome as old as 4,...

Scientist brings 50 million year old spider 'back to life'

A 50-million-year-old fossilised spider has been brought back to life in stunning 3D by a scientist at The University of Manchester. In a paper published in the latest issue of the Zootaxa journal, Dr David Penney and co-authors from Ghent University in Belgium report on the use of a technique ...

Severely restricted diet linked to physical fitness into old age

BUFFALO, NY -- Severely restricting calories leads to a longer life, scientists have proved. New research now has shown for the first time that such a diet also can maintain physical fitness into advanced age, slowing the seemingly inevitable progression to physical disability and loss of inde...

Brain cell growth diminishes long before old age strikes, animal study shows

Even early in adulthood, aging begins to slow the mind's growth -- but it does not have to stop it altogether, suggests a Princeton University study on the brains of adult monkeys. A team of neuroscientists has found that soon after marmoset monkeys reach adulthood, the rate at which new neura...

Structure of 450 million year old protein reveals evolution's steps

A detailed map that pinpoints the location of every atom in a 450-million-yeard-old resurrected protein reveals the precise evolutionary steps needed to create the molecules modern version, according to researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Oregon. ...

Scientists discover Amazon river is 11 million years old

LIVERPOOL, UK 29 July 2009: Researchers at the University of Liverpool have discovered that the Amazon river, and its transcontinental drainage, is around 11 million years old and took its present shape about 2.4 million years ago. University of Liverpool researchers, in collaboration with the...

The egg makes sure that sperm don't get too old

In contrast to women, men are fertile throughout life, but research at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, has now shown that a fertilising sperm can get help from the egg to rejuvenate. The result is an important step towards future stem cell therapy. The risk of chromos...

Fossil record reveals elusive jellyfish more than 500 million years old

LAWRENCE, KS Using recently discovered fossil snapshots found in rocks more than 500 million years old, three University of Kansas researchers have described the oldest definitive jellyfish ever found. In a paper to be published in PLoS ONE on October 31, the researchers describe four types of...

First orchid fossil puts showy blooms at some 80 million years old

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Biologists at Harvard University have identified the ancient fossilized remains of a pollen-bearing bee as the first hint of orchids in the fossil record, a find they say suggests orchids are old enough to have co-existed with dinosaurs. Their analysis, published this week i...

Putting an old drug to a new use

We all know that iron deficiencies are dangerous, but also too much iron is bad for our health. Our body stores excess iron in various tissues, where it can lead to organ failure and even death if not treated before irreversible damage has occurred. Researchers from the Innsbruck Medical University...

Evolution of Old World fruit flies on three continents mirrors climate change

Fast-warming climate appears to be triggering genetic changes in a species of fruit fly that is native to Europe and was introduced into North and South America about 25 years ago. "This is a clear signal on three different continents that climate change is occurring, and that genetic change i...

Male chimpanzees prefer mating with old females

Researchers studying chimpanzee mating preferences have found that although male chimpanzees prefer some females over others, they prefer older, not younger, females as mates. The findings uncover a stark contrast between chimpanzee behavior and that of humans, their primate cousins. The basis for ...

Agriculture and tropical conservation: rethinking old ideas

It's a long-held view in conservation circles that rural peasant activities are at odds with efforts to preserve biodiversity in the tropics. In fact, the opposite is often true, argue University of Michigan researchers John Vandermeer and Ivette Perfecto. Combining case studies with ecological...

Amber reveals ecology of 30 million year old spiders

Scientists at The University of Manchester and the Manchester Metropolitan University have carried out the first comparative scientific study of ancient spiders trapped in amber more than 30 millions years ago. The study of fossilised spiders from the Baltic (Poland) and the Dominican (Caribbean)...

Students discover 11,000 year old remains of Irish Elk

A group of history students have discovered the antler of an Irish Elk in cliffs near Kirk Michael on the Isle of Man. Although the exact age of the antler has yet to be determined, the position of the remains indicates that the elk (Megaloceros giganteus) lived around 11,000 years ago. The gian...

Spider blood found in 20 million year old fossil

A scientist from the University of Manchester has discovered the first identified droplets of spider blood in a piece of amber up to 20 million years old. Two droplets of blood, technically known as haemolymph, have been preserved in the amber which also contains the spider - Filistatidae - a fam...

Evidence of 600-million-year old fungi-algae symbiosis discovered in marine fossils

Researchers from China and the United States have found evidence of lichen-like symbiosis in 600-million-year-old fossils from South China. The previous earliest evidence of lichen was 400 million years old, discovered in Scotland. The discovery also adds to the scarce fossil record of fungi and ra...

Maine Researchers Find Exceptions to Old Rules of Genetic Inheritance

Discoveries by a research team from Maine could help to settle a long-standing debate in genetics. Some genes are seemingly inseparable in nature; they form a haplotype-a set of genes inherited as a unit. Some researchers support the notion that mapping haplotypes may be more significant than ma...

New species from old data

In a new study, researchers present a “cautionary tale?about what may go wrong when using the fledgling science of proteomics to devise a diagnostic test for cancer. In the February 16 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson ...

The way you eat may affect your risk for breast cancer

...a growth factor (IGF-1) in relationship to these two calorie restriction methods chronic and intermittent and tumor development beginning in 10-week old female mice at risk to develop mammary tumors. Their hope was to explain why intermittent restriction is more effective. The overall degree of res...

Naming evolution's winners and losers

...odiles and alligators are nearly 250 million years old yet have diversified into only 23 species, Alfaro ...cted. "Their species richness is so low, given how old they are," he said. The tuatara, which lives...high, is about what Alfaro would expect, given how old they are approximately 250 million years old. ...