Enzyme activation appears key in helping internal clock tell night from day
...sue of the journal Neuron, the Illinois scientists say that the activation of PKG-II may be the critical control point that tells our biological clock to proceed by putting night behind and journeying into a new day. In their research, the scientists blocked the phosphorylation action of PKG-II during th......s, many of which are related to circadian rhythms, say the scientists, who report their findings in the latest issue of the journal Neuron. In addition to Kay and Hogenesch, authors on the paper include Satchidananda Panda, Ph.D., a graduate of Scripps Research's Kellogg School of Science and Technolog...Tips from the journals of the American Society for Microbiology
... control the growth of E6-expressing tumor cells," say the researchers. "Therefore, E6 vaccines, and per...bolites that may be useful to health maintenance," say the researchers. "The study of self-medication in apes based in veterinary and behavioral survey mi...X marks the spot: Vector insertion is viral specific
... is likely to help guide design of better therapy, say the researchers. ...Infants sighs may 'reset' breathing regulation mechanism as well as help lungs develop
...seline level of fluctuation." The researchers say that the breathing pattern in young infants, a mathematical rhythm of sorts, is controlled by a long-term memory, which is necessary for a kind of homeokinesis that leads to a breathing rate of about 40 breaths a minute. Initially, they were somewhat...Evolution of whale hearing unfolds in fossil record
...t important sense organ for modern toothed whales, say scientists, because these whales locate their prey using echolocation. Directional hearing is critical: A blind such whale could find food without much trouble; a deaf one would starve. The study documents how hearing in these whales evolved. Th...Newcastle scientists get UK's first stem cell license
... The procedure involves reprogramming cells from, say skin tissue of a patient who has lost important cells through disease. The re-programmed cells will re-grow as the cells needed by that patient. The approved research requires the nucleus from a skin cell to be removed and placed into an unferti...Brain's reward circuitry revealed in procrastinating primates
...ce between reward and the work required to get it, say researchers at the NIH's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). "The gene makes a receptor for a key brain messenger chemical, dopamine," explained Barry Richmond, M.D., NIMH Laboratory of Neuropsychology. "The gene knockdown triggered a remar...Water on Mars not easy to find, says Texas A&M researcher
...ttered on the planet Mars have not yet been found, say the research team that operated the twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Their work appears in the current issue of Science magazine. Members of the team have written several articles in the magazine, among them "The Spirit Rover's Athena Science Inve...New hypoxic event found off Oregon coast
...ng trend with an unknown cause that scientists now say may reflect a major change in ocean circulation patterns, with serious impacts on marine biology. "When you see the same thing happening with this regularity, it suggests that something is fundamentally different," said Jane Lubchenco, the Valley Pro...Why some animals have smaller eyes: Lifestyle matters
... C. Howland, Stacey Merola and Jennifer R. Basarab say they did find a logarithmic relationship between animals' body weight and eye size for all vertebrates, in general: Bigger animals do tend to have bigger eyes, on average. But breaking vertebrates into smaller groups -- such as birds, fishes, reptile...Fundamental change to Immunology 101
...hey named the CLP, this is most likely a misnomer, say Bhandoola and Schwarz. The so-called CLP never physiologically gives rise to T cells, but remains in the bone marrow and develops into NK and B lineage cells. To further characterize the cell population they isolated from mouse blood, Schwarz ...Dispute over life in Antarctic lake
...om the ice above the lake. The Russians and French say these are contaminants from the drilling and testi...amination database," says Bulat. Other researchers say the decontamination techniques used on the core sample, which involve washing it and removing the ou...Depression traced to overactive brain circuit
...ation is likely an underlying vulnerability trait, say the researchers. Because of its ability to unmask what appears to be a trait marker for major depressive disorder, the researchers suggest that tryptophan depletion may be a useful tool for studying the genetic basis of depression. "Sinc...Huge market for forest moss raises concerns
...ery carefully," Muir said. "Right now it's safe to say that whatever we decide about a reasonable amount of moss to allow harvested is just a seat-of-the-pants-guess." And that assumes, she said, that there is an effective management or enforcement structure in place to control moss harvest, once q...MSU group reviews Berkeley venture into brave new science funding world
...ea. You have to have some controls; you can't just say because it's a lot of money it's a good idea." Do a better job of educating the public on the specific nature of intellectual property, technology transfer, and the nature of institutional accountability. Begin the difficult task of determining th...Droughts like 1930s Dust Bowl may have been unexceptional in prehistoric times, new study suggests
... Earth's climate to warm appreciably. "What we can say that is relevant is that these sort of drought cycles are common and most of the climate models predict increased aridity in continental interiors in the future," Clark said. "One could speculate that the droughts could be all that much worse when yo...Blood pressure hormone may inhibit growth of lung cancer
... may also inhibit the growth of lung cancer cells, say scientists at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, writing in the new issue of the journal Carcinogenesis. Patricia E. Gallagher, Ph.D., and E. Ann Tallant, Ph.D., said the hormone, called angiotensin-(1-7), "may represent a novel chemothe...Parents are top influence on soft-drink consumption among kids
...ldren's soft drink consumption. The researchers say additional research is needed to verify these findings in a larger representative sample of children. "Research has shown that parents are primary role models for kids and that includes their eating habits, too," said registered dietitian and ADA Sp...Scientists suggest framework for epigenetics in common disease
...n into traditional genetic studies, something they say will be necessary to understand the genetic and en...ying epigenetic marks. But the Hopkins researchers say now is the time to begin studying epigenetics on the same mammoth scale used to probe the sequence o...