New Brookhaven Lab study shows how ritalin works
...research area understanding why Ritalin, which is chemically quite similar to highly addictive cocaine, is not addictive when taken in pill form. One thing in common with all drugs of abuse is that they increase dopamine levels. Since oral doses of Ritalin do not produce a "high," the Brookhaven researchers di...Avocados contain potent liver protectants
...educing liver damage. Each was tested in rats with chemically induced liver injuries. The injuries resembled those caused by viruses, suggesting that avocado extracts may be especially promising for the treatment of viral hepatitis, according to the researchers. The investigators do not know whether the re...First gene therapy to calm pigs' out-of-sync hearts
...me, he says, when the researchers electrically and chemically stimulated the hearts to produce atrial fibrillation, a serious arrhythmia. In atrial fibrillation, both upper heart chambers quiver chaotically, up to 600 times a minute. This overwhelms the AV node's ability to filter incoming stimulation and cau...Insects caught in a nutrient-poor food web
...ed diet. Stoichiometry is a way of deciding what a chemically balanced diet looks like. Elser and his collaborators gathered reams of data on the chemical composition of plants and animals from previously published studies. Their literature search yielded information on 501 land plants such as trees and grasses...Just as you suspected: research shows a lot of things that taste bad are good for you
...e agricultural industry. Debittering foods, either chemically during processing, or by breeding bitterness out of such things as broccoli and zucchini, has been a focal point of the industry for decades....Hopkins researchers develop method to predict response to chemotherapy
...ne-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) gene appeared in a chemically altered form and 12 of these 19 had significantly better responses to chemotherapy, including regression of the tumor and increased long-term survival. This is compared with one patient of 28 with unaltered MGMT genes who responded to the chemothera...Researchers uncover secret to mass extinction events
...crosamples of calcium carbonate that could then be chemically analyzed for their stable isotopic composition. Patterson, working with Lohmann, refined the technique and applied it to fossilized otoliths, which are made of calcium carbonate, to determine seasonal climate conditions during a fish's lifetime. Be......crosamples of calcium carbonate that could then be chemically analyzed for their stable isotopic composition. Patterson, working with Lohmann, refined the technique and applied it to fossilized otoliths, which are made of calcium carbonate, to determine seasonal climate conditions during a fish's lifetime. Beca......ne kinase from all others. The new technique can chemically switch on or off individual kinases among many hundreds found in every cell. Until now, changing the structure of proteins to study their function has been the hallmark of modern molecular genetics, leading to fundamental leaps of understanding, ...New process improves potency, uses of grape seed extracts
Antioxidants chemically bind with and neutralize free radicals, which are reactive oxygen and nitrogen molecules that can damage cells and tissue. Grape seed extracts have shown a broad range of pharmacological activities related to the antioxidant properties of the polyphe...Zirconate material will improve plutonium storage safety
...lts confirm that there are radiation-resistant and chemically durable materials that can safely contain plutonium." This new material is capable of incorporating a large variety of chemical elements in its structure, including plutonium. The zirconate withstands the radiation that results from the decay of pl...UW team to examine effects of change in southern Africa on air pollution
...tudy how the emissions are modified physically and chemically as they age and move farther from their sources. "It's the aged pollutants that have the most affect on regional and global climate, not local pollutants," Hobbs said. Husky One, a Convair 580 turboprop, will be outfitted with a variety of special eq...Understanding how E. coli kills cells
...is mechanism was found when cells treated with the chemically synthesized peptide before invasion by the verotoxin did not undergo cell death. Thus, treating the cells with this short peptide prevents the verotoxinBcl-2 complex from forming and saves the life of the cell....New test for presence of nitric oxide could improve medical knowledge
...nly to nitric oxide, even in the presence of other chemically active molecules such as oxygen, and able to measu...only very weakly. When nitric oxide is present, it chemically bonds to the cobalt atom, causing a molecular rearrangement that results in a substantial, measurabl...Potential gene therapy carriers created that mimic viruses, without the risk
...as bio-scavengers. Because the particles also are chemically similar to lipoproteins, which comprise cholesterol, it might be possible to construct knedels that mimic high-density lipoproteins (HDL), so-called "good" cholesterol that scavenge low-density lipoproteins (LDL), or bad cholesterol.Next up for Woole...Researchers identify novel penicillin-resistance gene in pneumonia bacteria
...ity PBPs, but the altered PBPs appeared to build a chemically unusual cell wall enriched with the branched muropeptides. In penicillin-susceptible pneumococcal strains, most of the muropeptides are linear in shape. But in penicillin-resistant strains, "branched" muropeptidesso-called because of the presence of ...Beetle uses fecal defense against predators
...he fecal thatch, however. The thatch appears to be chemically inert, according to Thomas Eisner, who has made a specialty of explaining the chemical defenses that organisms use to save themselves from harm. Predatory insects that touched the fecal shield did not try to clean themselves, as do most creatures tha......ways to control the properties of these particles, chemically manipulating the magnetic interactions at the ...detect cancers. Finally, the particles must be chemically stable enough so that they are not quickly broken down inside the body. Zhang and his team h...University of Colorado salmon study spawns new insight into human brain aging
...udy were preserved, sliced into cross-sections and chemically stained to identify areas of APP and amyloid plaque build-up. Salmon are a good model to study because the physiological cascade of aging effects proceeds much like that in humans, although salmon run an astonishingly swift course toward death follo......e. In another experiment, the Hopkins researchers chemically paralyzed the cells and caused them to lose their leading edge. The researchers found that the G-proteins then became evenly distributed around the outside of the cell and that the cells became equally sensitive at all points. "What this tells us...