Binocular rivalry: Fulfilling visual expectations
...mental visual stimulus is artificial, the brain is functioning in its usual way. Watson, Pearson, and Clifford used binocular rivalry to demonstrate the importance of feedback in our interpretation of the visual image. For two images to generate binocular rivalry, they must provide conflicting evidence about ...Scientists explore genome of methane-breathing microbe
...ble of responding to changes in its environment by functioning through different chemical pathways for using methane. That finding, if confirmed by later experiments, may increase the bacterium's potential as a biotech workhorse. Methanotrophs play an important role in the global energy cycle because they consum...'Defensive' action by influenza viruses demonstrated by Hebrew university researcher
...channel which the virus needs in order to continue functioning and multiplying. Rather than conceding defeat, however, the virus takes its own counteractions: either by narrowing its channel to the extent that the blocking element in the drug is unable to bind and create a seal, or by widening its channel so th...Skin stem cells give hairless mice hair
...oratory, as well as to differentiate into skin and functioning hair follicles when grafted onto mice. The findings mean that the human equivalent of these stem cells, which scientists are also trying to isolate, could ultimately be used to regenerate skin and hair, the researchers said. Stem cells -- isolated f...Diabodies act as guided missiles targeted to mammary tumor growth
...s." The mammary tumor cells contained the normally functioning p53 tumor suppressor gene, while the p53-null ovarian tumor cells used in the studies lacked the protective action of that apoptosis-inducing gene. The mammary tumor cells also internalized the HER2-bound diabody fifteen times more rapidly than did t...Testing the fitness of biological clocks
...gae with disrupted clocks with algae with normally functioning clocks. When the mixture was placed in an environment with a 24-hour day/night cycle, the normal algae grew dramatically faster than those that lacked functional internal timers. The normal algae also outperformed the algae with the damped clocks, bu...Putting energy into heart protection
...a heart attack, they found that the mice without a functioning AMPK could not stimulate glucose uptake, although the molecular mechanisms for glucose uptake were intact, nor did they breakdown fatty acids to replenish ATP. Once blood flow returned, contractile function in the left ventrical of the mutant mice wa...JCI table of contents, 16 August, 2004
...a heart attack, they found that the mice without a functioning AMPK could not stimulate glucose uptake, although the molecular mechanisms for glucose uptake were intact, nor did they breakdown fatty acids to replenish ATP. Once blood flow returned, contractile function in the left ventricle of the mutant mice wa...Jefferson Lab detector technology aids development of cystic fibrosis therapy
...dy, he found that dripping a solution containing a functioning copy of the cystic fibrosis gene (CFTR) into the noses of mice without the gene could successfully deliver it into the lungs. Successful gene therapy depends not only on where genes are delivered, but also on how well genes are transferred th...Education, monitoring vital for sport-fish eaters
...ion for both men and women and may be toxic to the functioning of a fetus' nervous system. "Eating fish has well-documented nutritional benefits, such as the cardiovascular protection afforded by its Omega-3 fatty acids," says Cole, the lead researcher for the study, published in the July edition of Environmenta...Babies with DiGeorge syndrome saved by immune supression, thymus transplant
..., mature T cells emerge -- the final step toward a functioning immune system. The transplant recipients stay in isolation rooms in Duke Hospital, either on the pediatric floor or at Duke's General Clinical Research Center, funded by the National Center for Research Resources of the National Institutes of Health....JCI table of contents, 2 August, 2004
... disorders has focused primarily on a the improper functioning of a specific subset of immune cell called CD4+ T cells. Investigation of the role other immune cells might play in the pathogenicity of these diseases has just begun. Now, Klaus Ley and colleagues, from the University of Virginia Health Science Cent...Epilepsy: Signals 'brake' in brain impaired
... signals brake seems impaired: they have far fewer functioning ion channels than healthyrats. The results are pub...mporal lobe epilepsy some dendrites have far fewer functioning Kv4.2 channels than healthy rats,' the Bonn epilepsy researcher Professor Heinz Beck explains. There...Casanova or caveman: Scientists isolate nerve cells that choreograph male fly's courtship behavior
...nother 20 minutes. "But when we interfere with the functioning of those 60 nerve cells, the male essentially skips the tapping step and attempts to do everything else at once: He tries to copulate, lick her genitalia and play her a love song simultaneously. So what normally takes a total of four minutes is reduc...NRH1 and Wnt signaling come together in convergent extension
...escued by the co-injection of Frz7, a Wnt receptor functioning upstream of Rho, Rac and Cdc42 in the PCP pathway and, similarly, NRH1 complemented a dominant-negative Frz7 phenotype, indicating the two proteins play compensatory and mutually independent roles in the activation of small GTPases. Further experime...Scientists discover key step in the development of nerve cells controlling autonomic functions
...eurological health, vision, hearing, and cognitive functioning and to reduce the burden of related disorders through prevention strategies, screening, diagnosis, treatment, support systems, and palliation. The Montreal Neurological Institute (www.mni.mcgill.ca) is a McGill University ( www.mcgill.ca ) research a...JCI table of contents, 1 July 2004
...l blood vessels. The physical cause is the lack of functioning blood platelets, which promote blood clotting. The...ic and molecular mechanisms underlying the lack of functioning platelets; studies in any one of these types of thrombocytopenia, no matter how rare, often provide ...Cancer gene MYC emerging as key research target
...ls into question long-held assumptions about MYC's functioning and opens new directions for MYC research, McMahon says. "These previous studies looked at which genes are bound by MYC, and it turns out to be a great percentage of genes--one out of every six," McMahon says. "Our work has extended what these studie......tastasis in cancer; it is important for the proper functioning of immune cells and is necessary for the innate immune response; it is required for neuronal function and has been implicated in neurological diseases and mental retardation. "Understanding the basic mechanism of how Rac activation is regulated," sa...Melting ice cap gives urgency to new census of marine life project in Arctic Ocean
...fish, marine mammals and sea birds, impacting "the functioning and biocomplexity of the entire system." The Arctic is the world's least-known ocean, its permanently ice-covered waters more isolated than those at the edges of the Antarctic continent. Because it is so isolated, scientists have been surprised by t...