stain in Biological News

Old stain in a new combination

New combinations of agents based on the oldest synthetic malaria drug, the methylene blue stain, can curb the spread of malaria parasites and make a significant contribution to the long-term eradication called for by the international "Roll Back Malaria Initiative." In a study on 160 children with...

Freshwater fish at the top of the food chain evolve more slowly

...m?" says Collar. To find out, the researchers examined museum specimens representing 29 species of centrarchid fishes. Using a chemical process to stain and visualize the bones, muscles, and connective tissue, they measured the fine parts of the head and mouth. "A fish mouth is much more complicated th...

Managing Douglas-fir forests for diversity

... the understory for nesting and foraging. Douglas-fir mortality from black stain root disease was greater where all hardwoods were removed than where some h...er. Managers may also want to retain some hardwoods in areas prone to black stain root disease, since the hardwoods may reduce mortality of planted Douglas-f...

Unlikely life thriving at Antarctica's Blood Falls

...ion and the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Even the earliest explorers noted the massive red stain at the snout of the glacier and speculated as to what may have caused it. Some guessed that red alga was responsible for the bright color. "In fact, t...

Alzheimer cell death in Zebrafish: Demise of neurons observed live for the first time

...ebrafish can be studied under a laser microscope over an extended period of time," reports Haass. "If you add a color dye to the water to specifically stain dying cells, you can even directly watch the neurons as they die. That way, it should also be possible to watch and test directly whether potential dr...

Biomagnetics developed for use in new breast cancer tests

...d the UCL Department of Physics & Astronomy. Until now, pathologists had to stain tissue samples with brown dyes to help them determine whether they were nor...e use a solution of HER2 antibodies, tagged with magnetic nanoparticles, to stain the tissue sample. Using the HistoMag we can detect the quantity of tagged ...

Montana State University researcher finds renewed interest in turning algae into fuel

...m algae. It developed a system that screened algae for their oil content and greatly reduced the sample size needed for their research. It developed a stain for algae, called Nile Red. When treated with the stain, the algae became fluorescent under certain conditions, making it easier to measure their oil...

Breakthrough technology observes synapse in real time, supporting theory of vesicular recycling

...ve us an incredible new ability to watch all of this, up close and in real-time," says Dr. Ryan. Specifically, Dr. Ryan used a fluorescent chemical stain called pHluorin and genetically fused it to a vesicular protein called vGlut1. "We've used this fluorescent tagging approach before, but with molecule...

Oosight microscope enables embryonic stem cell breakthrough

...da College of Medicine. Before, the problem was always that you could not see the spindle in the egg, Mitalipov says. The only way to see it was to stain it with dyes. And that, we found, was very detrimental for egg quality. The Oosight uses liquid-crystal polarized light technology to image the spindl...

Cellular message movement captured on video

...paxillin serves as a docking station for a variety of signaling and structural proteins, they have been limited to visualizing paxillin with dyes that stain cells rigidly attached to microscope slides. Those snapshots of fixed cells can’t reveal paxillin movement. “We can now see the dynamics of how p...

Technology reveals 'lock and key' proteins behind diseases

...sporters, the only screening system sophisticated enough to work with delicate membrane proteins. Simply, if two proteins interact in iMYTH, they will stain the yeast cell blue. "Like lock and key, if two proteins interact with one another, it is safe to assume they participate or regulate the same cellula...

Post oak grasshoppers emerging

... make their presence even more obnoxious by leaving frass -- or insect excrement -- behind, which often leaves a near-permanent stain, Behmer said The stain is the result of tannins -- the compound used in tanning leather -- which are found in oak leaves. As the frass dries, the tannins bind strongly to ot...

OHSU researchers demonstrate how white blood cells cannibalize virus-infected cells

... with which they interact, but this new research shows this can happen in response to a systemic viral infection. "If you use a fluorescent dye to stain infected cells, you can literally watch T-cells consume membranes and outer surfaces of diseased cells. As they destroy and cannibalize the fluorescen...

Ring-like formations in drying DNA drops could affect hybridization studies

...d stains that result from spilled drops that have dried, in which the brown stain is not evenly distributed, but instead concentrated at the edge. Now, a tea...n of the wetting conditions, it is possible to miss all the DNA in the ring stain of a dried droplet, resulting in false negatives," Wong said. "We need to t...

Arctic expedition will investigate alien-like glacier

...closer to answering that age old question: are we alone in the Universe?" Beauchamp discovered the spring in the mid-1990s when he noticed a yellow stain on the snow while passing over the Borup Fiord Pass in a helicopter. He eventually visited the site and noticed the strong smell of rotten eggs that i...

Purdue creates new low-cost system to detect bacteria

...he system is you don't invade the biological environment that you want to measure," Rajwa said. "If you are working with stem cells, you don't want to stain them to see if they are stem cells. You want to be able to look at colonies on a petri dish without touching the colonies, without staining or destroy...

Tetracycline plus teeth equal gray smile

...nd creates a permanent dark and deep gray or brown stain over the entire tooth. Other stains appear in a pa...f a child had a high fever, just by looking at the stain pattern on their patient's teeth. In the 1950s, te... many doctors prescribed this drug. Since the stain is embedded deep into the tooth, different restora...

Marine mammals are on the frontline of failing ocean health

...hings we do in modern, industrialized society produce POPs (persistent organic pollutants) - burning of municipal waste, pulp mills, flame retardants, stain repellents ?there are all sorts of sources," says Todd O'Hara of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. In laboratory studies and acute exposure scena...

Studies reveal how plague disables immune system, and how to exploit the process to make a vaccine

...earchers infected mice with Y. pestis. Two to three days later they harvested cells from organs where the bacteria tend to cluster. They used a dye to stain those cells green. When Y. pestis attacks a cell it uses the type-III pathway -- a needle-like projection -- to inject various toxins into the cell...

Findings have implications for tracking disease, drugs at the molecular level

...an do molecules," he said. "We now have the ability to see single nanoparticles under conditions where people usually look at thousands or millions of stain molecules. This could allow us, for instance, to track a single molecule of a drug in a cell or other biological sample." Other advantages of the t...

DuPont's first biologically derived polymer receives global recognition

...V- and chlorine-resistance. Mills and manufacturers appreciate its easy dyeability and handling. In addition, products made with Sorona® are naturally stain resistant, requiring no additional chemical treatment to prevent stains. Sorona® can be used in a variety of applications including soft floor coverin...