16 APS exercise research highlights, from reduced flu mortality to proteomics & obesity
...ses that regulate the myogenic progenitor cell and characterize the discrete stages of the muscle repair process. 12.4 Natasha Frank, et al. (Children's Hospital Boston, Mass.) Expression of early developmental genes by human fetal skeletal muscle side population cells. Early developmental mechanisms may be p...Atacama rover helps NASA learn to search for life on Mars
...soils; document how life modifies its environment; characterize the geo- and biosignatures of microbial organisms and draft science protocols to support a discovery of life. Ames scientist Chris McKay is conducting a long-term ecological study of the Atacama as a Mars analog environment. Scientists using ...First glimpse of DNA binding to viral enzyme
...ith the protease was unprecedented and led them to characterize the interaction in detail. The scientists now believe that inside the virus particle the protease uses the DNA as a guide wire, sliding along the genetic material to remove the internal "scaffolding" proteins, all located near the DNA. The team ...Berkeley Lab soil scientist Margaret Torn receives Presidential Early Career Award
...earch, Torn says, "Most important, I am working to characterize the feedbacks between climate change and ecosystems -- as sources and sinks of greenhouse gases and how the surface of the land affects things like albedo," the degree to which solar radiation is reflected. "These are key factors in radiative forcing...Skin stem cells give hairless mice hair
... this paper was that we found we could isolate and characterize these cells by taking advantage of the cell-surface markers that we had previously identified from molecular profiling experiments," said Fuchs. "We can now utilize similar methods to begin to compare mouse and human skin stem cells." The scientists...Other highlights in the September 1 JNCI
... of Newcastle upon Tyne in England, and colleagues characterize a novel pathway that mediates the fenretinide induction of apoptosis, and suggest that this pathway may be a target for future drug development. In addition, because fenretinide increased the level of a neuroblastoma cell marker--one that is targeted...Mouse study shows NPAS3 and NPAS1 genes may be linked to psychosis
...and the complex, delusional cognitive defects that characterize human schizophrenia. Our results may turn out to have nothing to do with schizophrenia, or they could point to something more substantial." Little is known about the NPAS1 and NPAS3 genes. Both genes are expressed in brain cells called inhibito...Probing the surface of white blood cells to enhance immune system medicine
...s until now. Dartmouth Medical School researchers characterize the structure of white blood cells and challenge assumptions about how a certain immunodeficiency disorder affects the white blood cell surface in the September 1 issue of Blood, the journal of the American Society of Hematology. Their findings could...Penn scientists identify novel pathway in aneurysms
... reduced. "In humans it has been very difficult to characterize the mechanisms for aneurysm formation and progression," says Funk. "Often, studies have only revolved around pathological specimens obtained at autopsy or at the time of surgery." They concluded that leukotrienes derived from 5-lipoxygenase are one i......ese new results emphasize the need to maintain and characterize the natural biodiversity of crop plants as a source of agriculturally important traits and underline the increasing power of molecular studies for understanding the mechanisms underlying functional biodiversity....New OHSU lab will speed drug discovery process
... and it uses mass spectral methods to identify and characterize proteins. And investigators, including graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and medical residents, can quickly learn to operate the BSR's sophisticated equipment: Training will be available to users. "This kind of training progr...Genetic mutation linked to more aggressive breast cancer found more often in African-Americans
...45 African-American and 177 white women to further characterize the pattern of alterations of genes known to relate to tumor development and be associated with worse prognosis. The authors found that African-American women were four times more likely than white women to show significant alterations in a tumor sup...Fundamental change to Immunology 101
...ptors, so the team used these as molecular tags to characterize the different cells present. What Schwar...ops into NK and B lineage cells. To further characterize the cell population they isolated from mouse blood, Schwarz transferred these cells into mice whose ......raging behavior of livestock, they will review and characterize the direct and indirect impacts of managed grazing on sagebrush steppe rangelands. The lands also play a role in oil and gas production. A majority of leases for gas and oil development are on federal lands in regions such as the Wyoming Bas...LICR/UCSD team solves mystery of centromeres
...oral fellow in Cleveland's laboratory, was able to characterize the function of CENP-A with a UCSD School of Medicine invention called enhanced amide hydrogen/deuterium-exchange mass spectrometry, or DXMS*. This methodology, developed by Virgil L. Woods, Jr., M.D., associate professor of medicine and one of the ...U of T research answers key question in biochemistry
...t of Biochemistry, become the first researchers to characterize at an atomic level of detail the intermediate -- ...evels. This is the first time we have been able to characterize an intermediate state at this level of detail." Using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spect......ynamics, he said, and it allows the researchers to characterize movements of the spine, joints, arms and legs. The researchers use customized kinetics-processing and dynamics-processing software to crunch the numbers and render 3-D movement simulations. As the simulations are viewed, the researchers can ask a se...Scientists describe the world's smallest, lightest fish
...name (scientific name Schindleria brevipinguis) to characterize its thick, or "stout," structure as compared with other infantfishes. "Infant" describes the uncommon early-stage features of the animal. It is transparent without pigmentation, except for its eyes, and lacks teeth, scales and certain characteristics...A pathway to blocking autoimmunity
...hers profiled each gene regulated by PPAR-gamma to characterize the pathway leading to NKT activation. They were able to show that PPAR-gamma regulated the expression of a gene called CD1d, which encodes a glycoprotein responsible for the presentation of self and foreign lipids to T cells. This protein is indisp...New textbook introduces students to the foundations, applications of nanotechnology
..., beginning with the fundamentals, how to make and characterize nanoscale materials and an overview of the new classes of materials. Nanotechnology was enabled by the microscopy technologies developed in the 1980s that provide atomic-scale resolution and, later, nanoscale modification of surfaces. The authors des...