Near-zero-energy buildings blessing to owners, environment
...ich brings outside air into the house, play a huge role in making the design effective. While the fourth Near-Zero-Energy Habitat for Humanity House was just completed, the first house has been occupied by a family of four since November 2002. The daily cost for heating and cooling this house wi...RNA could form building blocks for nanomachines
...ce his discovery of a novel RNA that plays a vital role in a microscopic "motor" used by the bacterial virus phi29 (see related story), Guo has continued to study the structure of this RNA molecule for years. It formed the "pistons" of a tiny motor his lab created several years ago, and members of the tea...Leukemia stem cells identified by Stanford researchers
...nt"), which has only recently been found to play a role in helping stem cells continue dividing. Wnt is no... found that blocking beta-catenin's Wnt-activating role in the cancer stem cells also blocked their ability to self-renew. Weissman said that proteins activ...New OHSU lab will speed drug discovery process
...als and basic science investigations. An important role for the PKCore is to provide support for the OHSU Cancer Institute. "In the past, we couldn't do mass spectral analysis of this kind at OHSU," Koop said. "It was very expensive and time consuming to send samples to other facilities." D...Rutgers-Newark biologist links presence of protein to spread of cancerous cells
...fied a new link between a specific protein and its role in determining how cancerous cells divide, spread and form new tumors in other parts of the human body. In the article, "Rho Overexpression Leads to Mitosis-associated Detachment of Cells from Epithelial Sheets: A Link to the Mechanism of Cancer Dis...Joslin Diabetes Center launches research section on developmental and stem cell biology
...nic genes. If oxidative stress plays a significant role in causing birth defects, women with diabetes may someday be able to lower the risk of birth defects through dietary supplements that block oxidative stress. In addition, excess glucose metabolism may impair expression of many genes that contribute t...Brain's reward circuitry revealed in procrastinating primates
...compulsive disorder, so our finding of the pivotal role played by this gene and circuit may be of clinical interest," suggested Richmond. "For example, people who are depressed often feel nothing is worth the work. People with OCD work incessantly; even when they get rewarded they feel they must repeat t...The telomere crisis: A crucial stage in breast cancer
... and the number of copies of genes known to play a role in cancer. These measures increased, on average, f...t telomere crisis does appear to play an important role in the development of most breast cancers. Second is where it occurs: at the transition from hyperpl...Excess levels of nitrogen, phosphorus linked to deformed frogs
...logy of food webs in small ponds and the important role of the ramshorn snail in that web. His co-author,...gy at the University of Wisconsin, had studied the role of Ribeiroria ondatrae in frog deformities, confirming that deformed frogs were indeed caused by the...You are what you eat: New insight into autophagy
...ycling, the process known as autophagy plays a key role in regulating cell growth, metabolism and survival... of Minnesota, Minneapolis, examined the potential role of autophagy in controlling cell growth. "As growth and autophagy are both tightly regulated by PI3K...Size does matter when choosing a mate
...ts thought that sexual selection must be playing a role in driving Rensch's rule, until now nobody had been able to prove exactly how it worked. Although the research was conducted on shorebirds, the researchers are confident that that the same driver is in operation in everything from mites to primates t...New prostate cancer gene identified
...nown to be a tumor suppressor, most likely plays a role in regulating and maintaining normal tissue organization. The researchers have shown that the gene, known as EphB2, is inactivated in prostate cancer. This is the first time abnormalities in the gene have been linked to cancer. They believe loss of t......tions in the brain are believed to play a critical role in movement, vision and memory. To understand how these communication "tunnels" work, scientists must be able to shut them off. Once those tunnels are disabled, researchers can pinpoint the information that connexins pass between nerve cells and dete...LBP-1a gene mutation linked to disruption of normal fetal development
...gests that a similar defect in humans could play a role in fetal growth retardation, infant mortality and ...ing strongly suggests that LBP-1a plays a critical role in the production of blood vessels outside the embryo that extend into the placenta, according to Jo...U-M scientists find common virus in human prostate tissue
...possibility that this common virus also may play a role in prostate cancer the second-leading cause of de... but our results do suggest that the virus plays a role in the transition from normal to uncontrolled growth of prostate cells." BK is a human virus in t...Fundamental change to Immunology 101
...ow little direct evidence there was to support the role of a CLP as a physiological T-cell progenitor. That's why I took on this project, to better understand where T cells actually come from." To figure out which type of cell reaches the thymus, Schwarz and Bhandoola analyzed the blood of adult m...UCSD researchers are first to demonstrate molecular link between inflammation and cancer
...d tumor growth and suppression of apoptosis, whose role is to reduce cancer incidence," Karin added. "Our...IKK beta in myeloid cells, which play an important role in the immune system by generating white blood cells called macrophages to induce inflammation and f...Genes may be central to cocaine addiction
... proteins produced by the Homer genes might play a role in cocaine addiction. Members of the family were k...is a particularly good candidate to play a central role in cocaine addiction," wrote the researchers. Since the Homer proteins are known to be regulated by ...NHGRI adds 18 organisms to sequencing pipeline
...t of the plan, which is aimed at understanding the role that natural genomic variants play in causing diseases, will be developed at a workshop that NHGRI plans to hold later this summer. Sequencing efforts will be carried out by the five centers in the NHGRI-supported Large-Scale Sequencing Re...Outcome for acute lymphoblastic leukemia linked to gene expression patterns
...rently used to treat ALL. Despite the pioneering role of St. Jude in increasing the cure rate of childhood ALL from 4 percent to more than 80 percent during the past 40 years, the cause of failure in the remaining 20 percent of children is largely unknown, according to William E. Evans, Pharm.D., St. Ju...