Fat cells could provide the key to a longer life
... A tortoise lives for up to one hundred years, but humans live for only 75. This suggests there must be a genetic determinant of the rate of ageing and these regulatory mechanisms can be set differently in different species. All we have to do is crack the code to reset the clock and our research takes this ...Deciphering the limits to human maximal exercise performance
...lated suggesting that maximal exercise capacity in humans is limited by the maximal amount of O2 that can be...ity of active muscles. By studying elite athletic humans with highly trained arm and legs muscles (cross-country skiers), Dr Jose A. Calbet and a team of Sca...Drunken worms reveal a genetic basis of alcohol response
...gh the mechanisms that mediate alcohol response in humans or other animals are not well understood, most human neuronal proteins have worm versions and it seems likely that at least some of the mechanisms are shared. Additionally, the worm has been the subject of massive genetic study by scientists, and gen...Kangaroo hops in line for genome sequencing
...rsupials, which last shared a common ancestor with humans about 130 million years ago, also provide a unique midpoint on the evolutionary timeline for comparative studies involving other mammals. In addition to sequencing species that are far apart on the evolutionary tree, it is important to sequence sets ...Susceptibility of mice to mousepox offers promise of smallpox protection
...covery could pave the way to better protection for humans against the threat of smallpox, a related virus, as a weapon of bioterrorism. HHMI international research scholar Gunasegaran Karupiah, a scientist at the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University, and colleagues ha...Obesity and hypertension: Two epidemics or one?
...bese individuals. Therefore, BP is higher in obese humans than would be achieved at a lower level of excessi...tion. There is increasing evidence that obesity in humans is associated with peripheral and coronary endothelial dysfunction. There is increasing evidence ...Loss of circadian genes results in epilepsy
...deficiency has been known to provoke epilepsies in humans and laboratory rodents, PDXK misregulation has never been discovered thus far." Indeed, the researchers found that Pdxk expression is regulated by the PAR bZip transcription factors in both the liver and the brain. Furthermore, Pdxk expressi...Continents played key role in collapse and regeneration of Earth's early greenhouse, geologists say
...d the magnitude of global climate change caused by humans in recent history compared to that caused by natural processes over the ages. ''We're disturbing the system at rates that greatly exceed those that have characterized climatic changes in the past,'' Lowe said. ''Nonetheless, virtuall...Albany high school student adds to understanding of breast cancer gene
...of the same coding sequence within the gene, while humans and rodents such as mice and rats have less consis...d 246 different BRCA-1 sequence mutations found in humans considered at high risk for breast or ovarian cancer. The genetic information for those people was p...Researchers establish first molecular link between eating and aging
...e? "Evolutionarily, you would think it would make humans more resistant to infectious disease," Guarente said. "But you never know." He suspects that vigorous exercise also will be required. The next step in the process, he added, is to determine if an increase in Sirt1 in the body leads to a higher rate o...Could mice hold the secret to longer life?
... least active. If the same effects are mimicked in humans then the finding would imply that a higher metabolic rate could add an extra 27 years to the average human lifespan. When the muscles of the most metabolically active mice were examined, they were found to contain factors that increased their metabol...Ecological science for a crowded planet
... must take their science in bold new directions if humans and the natural systems on which they depend are t...ects, with an underlying aim of helping to sustain humans and the ecological services that support them. Targeted efforts must especially focus on sustainabi...U-M scientists use 21st-century technology to probe secrets of M. tuberculosis
...many variables in ways that would be impossible in humans or research animals. "Here we used a new approach called agent-based modeling, which allowed us to track the individual behavior of specific cells in the system and how they contributed to the collective outcome," Kirschner says. "This is one of fir...The search for a safer smallpox vaccine: New data released on promising candidate
... said. VaxGen plans to begin a Phase I/II trial in humans later this year to study LC16m8's safety and ability to induce an immune response. VaxGen also intends to initiate a large-scale safety trial in the second half of 2004. Additional pre-clinical studies are also planned....Gene at root of urban air pollution's lung effects
...sthma." The Duke team will next conduct studies of humans to confirm the gene's importance to the effects of inhaled air pollution. The human and mouse genes are known to play similar functional roles in innate immunity. Collaborators on the study include Donald Cook, Ph.D., David Brass, Ph.D., Julia Walker...Danger spots identified for threatened grizzly bear
...ll sites where grizzly habitats overlap areas that humans frequent regularly. Nielsen's paper, published in the journal "Biological Conservation" is one of the first to map out these dangerous locations. Until now, research has concentrated on mapping habitat alone. The biggest culprit, said Nielsen, is wh...Vaccines against foodborne disease on horizon
...her plants such as bananas or corn for delivery to humans or animals."...Combination therapy dramatically improves function after spinal cord injury in rats
...ts suggest that a similar therapy may be useful in humans with spinal cord injury. The study was funded in part by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health, and appears in the June 2004 issue of Nature Medicine.* About 10,000 people in ...Gene maps of simpler life forms point the way to human disease gene
...plete genetic codes of a type of algae, a weed and humans has led medical researchers to a gene linked to a human illness. The comparison allowed researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis to locate human genes that code for proteins likely to become part of hair-like structures on...From algae, weeds and people: new genetic clues to complex obesity syndrome
...ton University in St. Louis, revealed 688 genes in humans and the alga that are involved in building cells' ... -- the laboratory plant Arabidopsis. The alga and humans both have cilia, but the weed doesn't, so the researchers could eliminate genes and proteins that ar...