$6.75 Million to extend primate studies of diet and aging
...h time. The immune system - The natural system of defenses mounted by the body tocombat foreign organisms like viruses, bacteria and parasites begins to letdown its guard as we grow old. Oxidative stress - Life-giving oxygen, paradoxically, can be bad forhealth. Oxygen sometimes manifests itself as free rad...Mosquitofish threaten amphibians
...no native fish,the amphibians that live there lack defenses against fish predation. Amphibiansnative to these streams include the California newt, the Pacific treefrog andthe California treefrog, which is a candidate for protected status. Previous studies have shown that mosquitofish eat amphibians such as C...Genetic resistance to chemically-induced diabetes in mice linked to elevated antioxidant levels
...resistance couldlead to therapies to boost natural defenses against diabetes and improvesurvival of pancreatic islet transplants. "These studies in model systems suggest that the extent to which anindividual can detoxify free radicals as they form in pancreatic beta cells maybe an important compone......phic theory that the pressure of predators andprey defenses is greater in the tropics than in higher latitudes...preferences are influenced byphysical and chemical defenses such as plant toughness and secondarymetabolites. For example, broad-leafed tree in the tropics cont...Researcher finds plant toxin that causes fungal suicide
...nd. Osmotin was telling the fungusto tear down its defenses and let in more osmotin-- and the fungus did it. I...chers may use this information to beef up theplant defenses that cause apoptosis in fungi. "If it's true, this gives us possibilities for engineering more poten...USGS studies wildfire ecology in the western United States
...ugh native communities that often have few evolved defenses against such disturbances. Esque and others are conducting detailed studies to better understand how increased fire size and frequency can affect desert ecosystems, and how native plants and animals can be protected. "We're trying to take a holistic ...Chemistry to play major role in solving 21st century challenges
...eaties and "broad-spectrum antimicrobial drugs" as defenses against biological weapons. "A new professional ethic - analogous to the Hippocratic oath - that forbids the misuse of human genetic information to inflict injury or death" should be considered by scientists, he says. William Haseltine, chairman an...Gene therapy halts HIV replication in cells from infected patients
...ymphocytes, an essential part of the body's immune defenses and primary target cells for the AIDS virus. In this way, the antitat gene therapy might contribute to maintaining HIV in a dormant state in latently infected cells. Further studies will be needed to demonstrate whether this approach will be effect...Beetle uses fecal defense against predators
...ho has made a specialty of explaining the chemical defenses that organisms use to save themselves from harm. P.... "So fecal thatch is not really the last word in defenses or even in recycling," Eisner commented. "That's all right. Predators have to eat, too. And every t...Sea slug's shopping habits dictated by hunger, scientists report
... higher cost for a meal, if it had to overcome the defenses of prey unwilling to be eaten," Gillette said. (To see a snail learning to avoid noxious prey, go to http://www.life.uiuc.edu/slugcity/movies.html . Click on "One Trial Learning.")"We may have been looking at a very fundamental structural organizati...Nature's path leads scientists to new antibiotic strategy
...might take a very long time for bacteria to evolve defenses against it. "We don't think our new molecules will be compromised very quickly by resistance. These beta-peptides have no precedents in nature, unlike traditional antibiotics. Chemically, they are completely unlike the kinds of things bacteria ty...Study shows receptor molecule facilitates introduction of corrected genes into cells
...cells, but so far the body's sophisticated natural defenses against invaders -- especially in the lung -- have limited their effectiveness. Now, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine scientists have found what they think could be a big improvement. For the first time, they have targe...Virus linked to Kaposi's sarcoma sabotages immune system with a new and unusual strategy
... to encode functions like K3 and K5. But when host defenses are somewhat impaired, further immune sabotage by proteins like K3 and K5 can help KSHV spread more widely in the patient and ultimately lead to formation of a tumor. The research was funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.......ical twins. The effectiveness of a person's immune defenses for detecting and destroying trespasser antigens depends largely on his or her HLA gene complex. Similarly, these genes are suspected of playing a role when the immune system mistakenly targets the body's own cells as foreign, which is the case with...UF technique detects tiny, potentially harmful airborne particles
...gerous than larger ones because the body's natural defenses capture and expel the larger particles, while small ones lodge in the lung cavities and cause damage over time. A major component of smog, airborne particles have been tied to asthma and other diseases. One recent study attributed 3 percent of deaths...UF researcher: antioxidants play a role in deadly malnutrition disease
... stress markers. "Because of malnutrition, the defenses of these children is low," Leeuwenburgh said. "It really sets them up to be damaged from free radicals." Based on this study, Manary is designing interventions that he hopes to test in Malawi within the next few years. "It's very exciting," h...New prime-boost HIV vaccine strategy shows promise in monkeys
...ne primes the immune response, alerting the body's defenses to a SHIV invasion and preparing against subsequent attacks. The MVA booster then kicks the immune system into high gear by mimicking a viral infection. The researchers hoped a combination regimen of the two vaccines would strengthen the immune sys...The enemy of my enemy is my friend
... the production of a suite of chemical defenses that poison, repel or slow the growth ... in agriculture. However, these direct defenses also create problems for plants: 1) herbivorous insects rapidly evolve resistance to the......lls are a major target of KSHV and are key to host defenses against the virus, because they act as antigen presenting cells (APCs) to activate CTL responses against infected cells. As is generally seen in APC-T cell interactions, efficient activation of CTLs against KSHV requires not just that the B cells pr......ws farmers to naturally stimulate plant growth and defenses without altering its DNA. The product, Messenger, has been demonstrated on more than 40 crops to help protect against pests and diseases, to substantially enhance yields and improve quality, and to reduce reliance on conventional agricultural chemica...