tube in Biological News

Low levels of vitamin B12 may increase risk for neural tube defects

Children born to women who have low blood levels of vitamin B12 shortly before and after conception may have an increased risk of a neural tube defect, according to an analysis by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, Trinity College Dublin, and the Health Research Board of Ireland. ...

Ancient geologic escape hatches mistaken for tube worms

Tubeworms have been around for millions of years and the fossil record is rich with their distinctive imprints. But a discovery made by U of C scientists found that what previous researchers had labeled as tubeworms in a formation near Denver, Colorado, are actually 70 million-year-old escape hatc...

Darwin in a test tube

As described in an article published this week in an advance, online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the work demonstrates some of the classic principles of evolution. For instance, research shows that when different species directly compete for the...

Biomedical researchers create artificial human bone marrow in a test tube

ANN ARBOR, Mich.--- Artificial bone marrow that can continuously make red and white blood cells has been created in a University of Michigan lab. This development could lead to simpler pharmaceutical drug testing, closer study of immune system defects and a continuous supply of blood for trans...

Creation of antibiotic in test tube holds promise for better antibiotics

Scientists have made nisin, a natural antibiotic used for more than 40 years to preserve food, in a test tube for the first time using nature's toolbox. They also identified the structure of the enzyme that makes nisin and gives it its unique biological power. The work -- published in the March 1...

New insights into neural tube defects

Environmental and genetic factors lead to neural tube defects in 1 in every 1,000 births and cause 1 in 20 of every spontaneous abortion. One cause of these defects is the failure of cells within the neural tube to migrate to the middle of the developing neural tube. A study in this week's iss...

Carbon nanoparticles toxic to adult fruit flies but benign to young

...in the dust." The scientists immersed adult Drosophila in a control test tube and test tubes containing four different types of carbon nanoparticles corr...ltiwalled carbon nanotubes carried the carbon on their bodies from one test tube into another and deposited some of the particles in the clean tube. That te...

DNA computation gets logical at the Weizmann Institute of Science

...checking a list of 0s and 1s to determine if there was an even number of 1s. A newer version of the device, created in 2004, detected cancer in a test tube and released a molecule to destroy it. Besides the tantalizing possibility that such biology-based devices could one day be injected into the body a ...

Jet-propelled imaging for an ultrafast light source

... liquid, however, one that produced droplets sized a millionth of a meter or less. In their nozzle, liquid flows through a narrow capillary inside the tube through which the gas flows; the liquid issues from the capillary some distance from the opening in the outer tube, so the gas surrounds it, then incr...

Discovery to aid in future treatments of third-world parasites

...herlands have now shown that omega-1, a single protein secreted from schistosome eggs, recapitulates the activities of the complex mixture in the test tube (in vitro). Importantly, using IL-4 reporter mice, the researchers show that omega-1 alone is sufficient to generate Th2 responses in vivo. This id...

Brain malformations significantly associated with preterm birth, Wake Forest research shows

...ly, an abnormal buildup of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in the ventricles of the brain (65.2 percent); anencephaly, a defect in the closure of the neural tube during fetal development resulting in the absence of a major portion of the brain, skull, and scalp (57.7 percent); multicystic encephalomalacia, the ...

Ovarian transplantation: First baby is born after a new technique

...lantation," said Dr. Piver. "But after transplanting half of the frozen ovary, she recovered spontaneous ovulation in four months. Her right fallopian tube had been destroyed by the ovarian retrieval, and the function of the ovary and hence the chances of pregnancy are limited in time. Hence we decided to...

Crustacean shell with polyester creates mixed-fiber material for nerve repair

...t serves as a guide to protect the neuron from injury," Zhang said. "If the tube is made of collagen, it's difficult to keep the conduit open because any st...body, the chitosan-polyester blend required twice as much force to push the tube halfway shut as the other biomaterial, and eight times as much force as the...

Peripheral nerve repair with fat precursor cells led to wider nerves and less muscle atrophy

...or this study included those with no treatment, those receiving an autograft but no nerve guide tube, and those receiving an autograft and nerve guide tube but no APC transplant in the guide tube. Researchers noted that the "gold standard" for nerve repair is the autograft to repair nerve gaps. Pre-cl...

University of Saskatchewan and Canadian Synchrotron researchers shed light on esophageal disease

...ch as glycoproteins were associated with the Barrett's tissue. Barrett's Esophagus (BE) occurs when the cells that normally line the esophagus the tube that connects our throat to our stomach are replaced by cells that resemble those that line the intestine. While BE only affects approximately one pe...

American Chemical Society's weekly PressPac -- May 27, 2009

... nanoparticles 1/50,000th the width of a human hair. Although acting like conventional detergents, they seem unlikely to irritate the stomach. In test tube experiments, microcapsule versions of the arthritis drug, indomethacin, dissolved up to five times faster than a regular version of the drug. Lab rats...

New guidelines to fight obesity in pregnancy issued

.... These newborns are at increased risk of: Being born prematurely Fetal and neonatal death Having certain birth defects, especially neural tube defects Needing special care in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) Being obese in childhood Preterm birth is a serious health problem th...

Getting to the root of science in a nutty way

...-degree angle about 20 inches from the trunk of 20 trees in a 400-tree orchard planted in February. Each hole was fitted with a six-foot clear plastic tube into which a camera will be inserted at various times in the growing year. "Pecan trees are planted bare root, that is with not much root system,"...

Bull's-eye electrode helps interpret thoughts, deliver stimulus to aid paralyzed, epileptic patients

...entric circles that make it look like a small target. "Imagine an inner tube sitting in a pool of water. The water in the middle of the tube is calm because the ring flattens out the choppy water around it," explaine...

Folic acid to prevent congenital heart defects

... Montreal, May 14th 2009 - The Canadian policy of fortifying grain products with folic acid has already proved to be effective in preventing neural tube defects. The latest article published in the British Medical Journal by a group of researchers from the McGill Adult Unit for Congenital Heart Disea...

Research team wins funds to unravel a DNA mystery

...e that the right gene is turned on at the right time and place. This will be done by comparing DNA looping inside the cell with looping in the test tube and with predictions obtained through computer simulation. Dr Shearwin and Dr Dodd will be designing the DNA sequences that will be used for the pr...

Immigrant women may be at higher risk of having a baby with a birth defect

...m to better educate new mothers and prevent neural tube defects in their babies." Neural tube defects are birth defects of the spinal cord and b...anencephaly. Research has shown the risk of neural tube defects can be reduced by nearly 50 per cent with ...

Caltech scientists control complex nucleation processes using DNA origami seeds

...le, 95 by 75 nanometers, which served as the seeds for the growth of different types of ribbon-like crystals of DNA. The seeds were combined in a test tube with other bits of DNA, called "tiles," heated, and then cooled slowly. "As it cools, the first origami seed and the individual tiles form, as thei...

Health benefits, consequences of folic acid dependent on circumstances

...has shown that greater dietary intake of the B-vitamin, folate, offers protection against the development of certain common cancers and reduces neural tube defects in newborns, opening new avenues for public health interventions that have a great impact on health. However, folate's central role as an esse...

Brain building: Study shows brain growth tied to cell division in mouse embryos

... pathway that is active in a variety of tissues and organisms. Mice that lack Vangl2 have a number of neurological defects including incomplete neural tube closure and reduced brain size. Sokol and Lake wondered how Vangl2 might influence brain development. In the cerebral cortex, neurons are born from...

Two innovative University of Texas at Austin biologists become HHMI Early Career Scientists

...g events that curl a flat sheet of cells into a closed neural tube. This tube later develops into the spinal cord and brain. Improper closure of the neural tube leads to birth defects, such as spina bifida. Wallingford is expanding his ...

Gorilla gets MRI at Bronx Zoo

...e MRI facility and staff to the Bronx Zoo's campus, free of charge. The gorilla was sedated for the two-hour procedure, placed into the MRI's magnetic tube for the scans (a snug fit for a patient with gorilla-sized shoulders), and returned to the Congo Gorilla Forest as planned. Under strict protocol, the...

UF scientist tapped by Howard Hughes Medical Institute to pursue 'best ideas'

..."The incidence of genitourinary malformations in humans came as a huge surprise to me. A staggeringly high frequency of one in 250 kids has a urethral tube defect, and that number has more than doubled in the past 30 years without an explanation." Understanding how genes respond to the environment is i...

UConn chemists find secret to increasing luminescence efficiency of carbon nanotubes

...can best be explained by imagining sliding a small tube into a slightly larger diameter tube, Papadimitrak...happen, all deposits or protrusions on the smaller tube have to be removed before the tube is allowed to slip into the slightly larger diamet...

Doctors endorse vegan and vegetarian diets for healthy pregnancies

...udy showing that low levels of vitamin B12 may increase the risk for neural tube defects. The Pediatrics study is based on analysis of stored blood sa...rare at that time. The women lived in a region of traditionally high neural tube defects prevalence, suggesting a moderately high genetic predisposition. ...

Scientists discover why teeth form in a single row

...ls to treat malformations and to develop prevention strategies for cleft palate (e.g. the inclusion of folic acid in prenatal vitamins prevents neural tube defects in some cases). Cleft lip/palate occurs one in 700 live births. Along with Jiang, the work was led by Zunyi Zhang and Yu Lan within the Ce...

Reducing animal experiments through top-class research

...e primarily only used as cell donors. The actual test series, the introduction of the gene, can however be performed in a cell culture and in the test tube and now no longer needs to be performed in vivo. This significantly reduces the number of animal experiments required and the number of animals used a...

Suppressing cancer with a master control gene

...eliminary, result suggests that it may be possible to switch the gene back on in living patients to target their cancers. Taking this work in the test tube and using it to develop a therapy is an exciting but complicated challenge. Therefore, more work will be required to further understand the role of AT...

Nanotube's 'tapestry' controls its growth

...embly' process," said Rice's Boris Yakobson, professor in mechanical engineering and materials science and of chemistry. New theory suggests that each tube is 'woven' from many twisting threads. Each grows independently, with new atoms attaching themselves to the exposed thread ends. The more threads ther...

Statement by the Egg Nutrition Center and American Egg Board on Diabetes Care study on egg consumption

...in for growth, muscle strength and energy and promote weight management. Key nutrients found in eggs have also been shown to reduce the risk of neural tube birth defects and promote eye health. An article published in the November 2008 issue of Diabetes Care that examined data collected in the Physician...

Crib-side studies help struggling newborns go home without feeding tubes

...rpinning of each newborn's feeding problem, the team uses a special feeding tube with advanced sensors to capture the rhythm of muscular contractions throug...eginning with the mouth and ending beyond the stomach. The signals from the tube are translated into a graphic form and are evaluated. Data is then shared w...

Researchers examine developing hearts in chickens to find solutions for human heart abnormalities

... VIDEO: In the early stages of heart development, the heart is a tube that has uniform shape and does not have a clear atrium or ventricle. As development progresses, a single... Click here for more...

Microbot motors fit to swim human arteries

...rious damage during minimally invasive surgery is however not always avoidable and surgeons are often limited by, for example, the width of a catheter tube which, in serious cases, can fatally puncture narrow arteries. Remote controlled miniature robots small enough to swim up arteries could save live...

Fewer deaths with preventive antibiotic use

...ntibiotic paste four times a day. The second group, in addition to being given the oral paste four times daily, received antibiotics through a gastric tube in the intestinal tract and by intravenous drip. The third group was the control group and received the standard ICU care. After four weeks, fewer...

Caltech researchers get first look at how groups of cells coordinate their movements

...ved the vast reorganization and migration of cells that occurs during gastrulation in Drosophila, the fruit fly. During gastrulation, a single-layered tube of cells collapses and then begins to spread. The scientists focused their attention on the movement of cells from two cross sections of that tube, pa...