Researchers identify the genome's controlling elements
...According to Fraenkel, knowing these communication patterns ultimately will have a profound influence on our understanding of everything from infectious disease to cloning. To eavesdrop on these cellular conversations, graduate student Chris Harbison from Young's lab and postdoctoral researcher Ben Gordon fr...Other highlights in the September 1 JNCI
...ealth Benefits of Diet and Exercise Changes in patterns of diet and exercise are needed to reverse the obesity epidemic and reduce the risk of chronic diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. However, there is little consensus among researchers about how to determine what interventi...NIGMS funds Center for Quantitative Biology
... focus on three key biological questions: how body patterns are established during an organism's early development, how cells control their internal functions and communicate with each other, and how viruses interact with host cells. The researchers will use state-of-the-art microscopes and imaging tools to e...Better living through urban ecology
...ical studies, BES research has revealed unexpected patterns and processes in the Baltimore ecosystem. Renewed funding will allow us to investigate the ecological and social feedbacks underlying urban ecology discoveries," One of the project's goals is to include this growing and often misunderstood ecosystem ...JGI announces community sequencing program portfolio
... to exemplify intermediate features underlying the patterns of genome evolution. Early branches of the tree of life will be represented by the sponge Reniera and an odd organism called Trichoplax adhaerens. With a superficial resemblance to a giant amoeba, Trichoplax has the smallest animal genome, less tha...Length of sex act in flies dictated by genetics
...er effects that may have nothing to do with cyclic patterns of day and night. "These genes probably have important regulatory functions in many other areas that we do not yet understand," said Jaga Giebultowicz, an OSU associate professor of zoology and principal investigator on this study. For instance, Gie...Why your knees and quads hurt more after running than walking: You're only human
...hey run than when they walk. But with our unique patterns of limb kinematics, a group of scientists wanted to study exactly how that affects how we use our muscles while walking and running, and to better understand why it's more "efficient" to walk than to run. Harvard research finds five-fold increase in ...UCR earns $1.5 million grant to examine how engineered crop genes stray
... computational modeling to estimate the timing and patterns of the spread of transgenes across space and national borders as well as their ecological consequences. The result will be the first global model of gene flow that accounts for both human and natural processes of gene dispersal. "This is really ver...Sweet success in targeting sugar molecules to cells in living animals
...ule. It has long been known that the glycosylation patterns of sugar molecules on cell surfaces can influence ...lls, for example, exhibit changes in glycosylation patterns when compared with their normal healthy tissue counterparts," said Bertozzi. "And there are changes ...The first engineering of cell surfaces in living animals
... out cells with certain glycosylation patterns" -- patterns of cell-surface sugars characteristic of cancerous cells, for example, or sites of inflammation. Not only does the demonstration of the Staudinger ligation in mice suggest a range of diagnostic and therapeutic possibilities, the Staudinger ligation ...Using statistics to decipher secrets of natural mutation
...matical approach for analyzing the complex, subtle patterns of natural mutation in DNA will, according to its ...st, we think understanding the underlying mutation patterns better will also help us in finding the functionally important features in the genome. Basically, it...Hopkins scientists use blood proteins to detect ovarian cancer
..., teased out with a rigorous evaluation of protein patterns present in blood samples from ovarian cancer patients at several U.S. and international hospitals. Other research groups are evaluating ovarian cancer blood tests that use protein profiles consisting of tens of thousands of unidentified molecules. "...T. rex owes its giant size to the ultimate teenage growth spurt
...t this empirically based method of developing life patterns from small, amedullar bones [those without a hollow cavity] will be applied to many other types of dinosaurs."...Biologists deciphering complex lemur scent language
...re had been general studies on lemur scent-marking patterns including sex and seasonal differences," said Drea, who is an assistant professor of biological anthropology and anatomy. "But we wanted to look at the problem in more depth. We wanted to explore the possibility of scent signatures, how animals respo...Coordinating power of circadian rhythms keeps estrus and pregnancy on track
... have begun to uncover the basis for how the daily patterns of biological behavior known as circadian rhythms ...hmicity. The circadian rhythms that underlie these patterns are controlled in the brain by a molecular clock that has a period of approximately 24 hours. By stu...More aggressive breast cancer tumors found in African American women
...ressor gene called p53. The team looked at how the patterns of alterations of genes related to worse prognosis differed between African-American and white women. They examined the breast tumors of 145 African-American and 177 white women and found that African-American women were four times more likely than w...New hypoxic event found off Oregon coast
...an odd combination of climate, winds and upwelling patterns that led to a hypoxic event a situation in which the oxygen level was so low it could not support most marine life which had not been seen in the region's recent history. But continued research has shown that the same thing almost occurred last yea...Study links high carbohydrate diet to increased breast cancer risk
...gher than women with more balanced diets. Dietary patterns in Mexico are characterized by higher consumption of carbohydrates and lower intake of fat and animal protein than those in more affluent western countries. The team of researchers from the Instituto de Salud Pblica in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and the H...Method to visualize gene activity may provide insight into normal development & genome function
...dict how aggressive a tumor will be from its early patterns of gene expression." "Cell fate decisions m...ling has allowed us to directly map the activation patterns of micro-RNA genes, which were hitherto undetectable," says William McGinnis, a professor of biology...... other on the south, said Streelman. Cichlid color patterns are important in mate selection, so these distinct markings may promote the evolution of new species. Whether or not that happens and how long it will take is a question to which Streelman is eager to find the answer. "It could be that we'll have n...