Lowly weeds may hold promise for curing host of common health woes
...gest that we need to broaden our horizons if we're going to search for new drugs from plants." The plant-derived pharmaceuticals Stepp studied are single compounds extracted from a plant and used in a pharmaceutical, and are different from herbal medicines, such as ginkgo biloba and garlic, that have gain...LARGE protein can overcome defects in some types of muscular dystrophy
...al person went out and ran 20 miles, the muscle is going to be damaged. But the muscle is actually able to repair itself," said Campbell. "However, patients with muscular dystrophy undergo this process much more quickly, and they eventually lose the ability to repair. That's when they get weak." Defects i...UF researcher: New low-carb potato to debut in January
...arbohydrate counters. "Consumers are going to love the flavor and appearance of this potato and the fact that it has 30 percent fewer carbohydrates compared to a standard Russet baking potato," said Chad Hutchinson, an assistant professor of horticulture with UF's Institute of Food and Agricu...Nation's plant database falling behind, survey shows
...s are startling: Fewer scientists and students are going into the field to gather plants and preserve them in collections. The result, Prather said, is not only a breakdown of resources for a myriad of professionals, but also a breakdown of knowledge of what habitats were like and what they are becoming. ...Researchers report major advance in gene therapy technique
... for an extended period of time. "I think this is going to change everything relating to gene therapy for muscle problems and other disorders," says Jon Wolff, a gene therapy expert who is a UW Medical School pediatrics and medical genetics professor based at the Waisman Center. "Our non-viral, vein metho...Single gene mutation muddying Parkinson's risk forecasts
...s of red flags for testing for parkin. How are you going to use this information? How are you going to counsel patients? What does this really mean?" Nutt said. Whatever the cause, Nutt believes couns...Junk DNA yields new kind of gene
...and say, 'Well maybe those are examples of what is going on here in yeast,'" said Martens. If so, the findi...d. "Every time we thought we understood everything going on here, we have been wrong. There are additional layers of complexity."...When blood can't get to brain, special CT scan helps
...ns, but more research will help." "Perfusion CT is going to be a terrific adjunct in the evaluation of certain patients with risk factors for stroke, especially those critical patients in whom an expeditious decision is needed," says co-author Gregory Thompson, M.D., an associate professor in the U-M Depar...Gene therapy with growth factor seems promising therapy for incurable muscle disorder ALS
...ith Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) the nerves going to the muscles deteriorate, which is why the patient loses control of his muscles and is progressively paralysed, but remains disconcertingly in full possession of his faculties. The cause of this serious deterioration disease with an enormous clini...Floods, bugs and Hollywood disasters
...eeding environments of water in abundance, this is going to be a bad news year for mosquitoes, and a big year for black flies," Merritt said. Mosquitoes breed in still puddles of water. Black fly larvae thrive in clean, flowing water. Rivers and steams that have washed over their banks are heaven for blac...Study suggests double punch could more efficiently kill viruses
..., can kill them. "There's a great deal of research going into the design of vaccines to target these types of difficult-to-destroy viruses," Norbury said. "Most focus on how to boost or improve the body's own T cell response to the virus." CD8+ T cells play an important role in the elimination of tumor cel...Study shows that genes can protect kids against poverty
... that were measured, such as taking a long walk or going to the park, cost little or no money. With the joint role of genes and upbringing - nature and nurturing - on development, the researchers conclude that both children and their parents are agents capable of protecting children against the hardships o...Researchers discover protein that dissolves amyloid fibers
...That certainly made us want to figure out what was going on," says Lindquist, who is also a professor of biology at MIT. "It was hard to come up with a definitive experiment in a living cell that would explain this sort of thing." In this new study, Lindquist and postdoctoral researcher James Shorter isola...Super-effective 'jumping gene' created
...e was the home-run experiment we never thought was going to work," says Jef Boeke, Ph.D., professor of molecular biology and genetics and director of the High Throughput Biology Center in Hopkins' Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences. Jumping genes, aka retrotransposons, are bits of genetic material t...20 May AAAS lecture: Computers that Respond to Human Emotion
...r frustrated. "So instead of an interface emotion going only one way, like smiling paper clips that pop up on your screen, it needs to be responsive to our emotions," Picard explains. "If we send it an emotional signal saying 'we don't like this' it should respond and offer the user the option to turn its...MBL researcher and science teacher visit Siberia to study climate, excite children about science
...oration to teach the students the science concepts going on with this research project: convection currents, density, oceanography, and watersheds, and how satellite phones work," says Clapp, who will be working with Holmes to gather Lena River samples aboard the vessel P406 . "It's been exciting to partic......stood us in good stead." Other scientists are also going after the DNA. Yossef Av-Gay, a microbiologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, has been asked by Nanobac to work out what makes nanobacteria tick. "These particles are self-replicating, that is without doubt," Av-Gay says....Pancreatic cancer blood test & gene studies show promise
...ng of the normal signaling process when things are going right," says Simeone, an associate professor of surgery at the U-M Medical School. And eventually, she says, a better picture of what molecules and pathways are important to the initiation and growth of pancreatic cancer may yield new opportunities f...Stem cells toward sperm cells and back again
...only 22 percent of testes had remaining stem cells going into the recovery period, 76 percent of them had stem cells after two days at 18 degrees. "We had expected that remaining stem cells replenished the supply, but even in testes with none left, stem cells reappeared once the signal was turned back on,...Expression of Rb2/p130 and VEGF could serve as potential liver cancer prognosticators
...ential role as prognostic markers because they are going to indicate the aggressiveness of the cancer," say...a because no matter what the tumor stage, they are going to be good prognosticators," adds Giuseppe Russo, Ph.D., a research fellow at the Sbarro Institute. ...