Mitochondrial genes cause nuclear mischief
...gments also integrated into the nuclear genome may not be quite so benign. They have continued to invade the human genome, even into the present day, and a large proportion of them take up residence within nuclear genes, possibly disrupting them and causing human diseases. Scanning the entire human genom...In a world of distortion, archer fish learn to judge absolute size of aerial prey
...periments, the researchers showed that the fish do not learn this by remembering which combinations of spatial configurations and the corresponding images were rewarding in the past. Rather, the fish extracted the underlying law that connects spatial configuration and apparent size. This remarkable cogni...'Defensive' action by influenza viruses demonstrated by Hebrew university researcher
... binding action of the blocker to the viruses, but not the process taking place in the viruses'channel. Thus, there was only a limited picture of what was actually happening. This new information on the mutating abilities of the influenza virus will have to be taken into consideration in further anti-vi...Bone marrow cells routinely help with wound healing
Bone marrow produces cells that not only help fight infection, but also permanently he...versity of Washington. Previously, researchers had not known that bone marrow contributed to the development of new skin in wounds. The findings will be p...Long-term effects of carbon monoxide poisoning are an autoimmune reaction
... physiological causes of this delayed decline were not well understood until now. A team led by Stephen R...ue to an autoimmune reaction. The body simply does not know when to stop attacking what it now views as an invader. "This opens up a lot of possibilities, ...Single isolated mouse skin cell can generate into variety of epidermal tissues
...shed in the September 3 issue of the journal Cell, not only demonstrates for the first time the multipote...new methodology for isolating skin stem cells does not require genetic manipulation. "This opens the door for applying this method for isolating human cell...Broken arms and collateral damage: clues to predator-driven evolution
...ed are scattered throughout the fossil record, but not evenly, Baumiller said. During one part of the Pal...nary response of the prey," Baumiller said. That's not the whole story, though. Baumiller and Gahn suspect that crinoids were not the intended targets of t...Natural mineral locks up carbon dioxide
... carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning in hours, not eons. "Serpentine naturally sequesters carbon diox...ction, "says Maroto-Valer. "With our method, we do not need to crush it that fine and we do not need high temperatures. In fact, the reaction gives off hea......en linked to some tumor growth. To test whether or not BMP4 is indeed a growth mediator, they used techniques from gene therapy and protein delivery to mis-express BMP4 and its antagonist. "The results," Chuong says, "were astounding. The chicken beaks were modulated into a spectrum of beak shapes mimick...Battle between bubbles might have started evolution
...t alone. The membranes of the simple vesicles were not as sophisticated as the membranes of today's living cells, said Szostak. However, they closely resembled the kinds of primordial vesicles that might have existed at the beginning of evolution. When the scientists mixed the two vesicles, they observe...Skin stem cells give hairless mice hair
...at of normal mouse fur," said Fuchs. "While we are not yet able to achieve such density a hundred percent of the time, the fact that we do get such density in some cases tells us that the system is working well. We just need to tweak it to the point where we can get such results consistently," she said. ...Small, Smac-like molecule encourages death of cancer cells
... inhibitor-of-apoptosis proteins (IAPs), which, if not countered by Smac, will keep the cell alive and gr...far has only been tested on cells in culture, does not appear to harm normal cells, just cancer cells, said Dr. Wang, who is a Howard Hughes Medical Instit...Molecular staples shape a cancer killer
... last decade, researchers speculated that it would not be long before biotechnology and pharmaceutical co...to kill different cancers. Walensky said he would not be surprised to see hydrocarbon stapling of alpha-helices applied to control many interactions betwe...Rare deficit maps thinking circuitry
...rder, we can discover how genetic mutations change not only molecular and cellular processes, but lead to differences in the brain circuitry for complex aspects of cognition." To identify where in the brain things go awry in the visuospatial construction deficit, Meyer-Lindenberg and Berman recruited 13 ...Computer models expose humans as main cause of caribou decline
If not for humans, the number of woodland caribou in northern Alberta would be seven times greater than it is now, a new study from the University of Alberta shows. Since 1987, woodland caribou in Alberta have been classified as threatened under the Alberta...Essential smell gene may provide key to new insect repellents
...e. The flies appeared to be normal, but they could not smell at all, either as larvae or as adults. The ...ae wandered aimlessly in the dish because they did not detect the smell. But a dose of Or83b receptor, delivered to the odor-sensing cells through a sort o...Entrepreneurs to be told how nature's secrets can improve business
... said Anja-Karina Pahl, one of the organisers. "We not only explore the link between nature and technology, but actually turn biology into creativity. "What we say to entrepreneurs is: use our case history to develop your business. There are millions of years of research that can help us, in nat...Flame retardants found on supermarket shelves
...ted in humans across the globe, but scientists are not certain how they are getting there. Our paper i...Spanish and Japanese surveys. The researchers did not speculate on why levels in samples from Dallas supermarkets were higher than in the other two studie...Men from early middle ages were nearly as tall as modern people
...2.5 inches of height by the 1700s, a loss that was not fully recovered until the first half of the 20th century. Steckel believes a variety of factors contributed to the drop and subsequent regain in average height during the last millennium. These factors include climate change; the growth of cities a......oses of melphalan. The effect was synergistic, but not related to heat-promoted increased uptake of the drug. The studies were conducted at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C. Two inhibitors of steroid synthesis used to treat hormone-dependent breast cancer in postmenopausal women pack a si...