Amyloid fibers sprout one step at a time
Researchers have combined sophisticated biochemical and imaging techniques to get a glimpse of the stepwise assembly of amyloid fibers in a yeast prion protein. Their findings suggest that these structured fibers form in competition with the amorphous globules that some believe may cause toxicity in amyloid diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The researchers say this may have important...Viral suspect for amphibian decline traced to human spread through bait
What do Smallpox, AIDS, SARS, Monkeypox, West Nile Virus, Chestnut Blight, Dutch Elm Disease, Sudden Oak Death Syndrome, Sea Otter Mortality and Avian Flu have to do with the world-wide disappearance of frogs and salamanders, otherwise known as "Amphibian Decline"? And with bait shops?...... These diseases and their pathogens, with the unsuspecting support of humans and our global activities, all...Scientists discover proteins involved in spread of HIV-1 infection
Bethesda, MD - An international team of researchers has identified a family of proteins that are involved in HIV-1 budding from host cells, and are therefore likely to be essential for the spread of the virus. Targeting these proteins and the proteins they interact with could lead to potential new therapies for HIV-1 as well as other viruses that use the same budding mechanism.... ...The resea...Rutgers-Newark biologist links presence of protein to spread of cancerous cells
Biology researchers at Rutgers-Newark have identified 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 Dissemination," appearing in the August 9...Physics gravity model applicable to disease spread
Tracking the spread of new or reemergent diseases like SARS or smallpox is essential in controlling disease epidemics, but horse-and-buggy concepts of how diseases spread have been supplanted by 21st-century realities. ... "In the past, one expected the spread of disease to be based on distance, and the closest town would be the location of the next outbreak," says Dr. Ottar Bjornstad, assistant...Spring through fall, cities are greener longer than neighboring rural regions
(Boston) -- Summer can sometimes be a miserably hot time for city dwellers, but new research shows that an urban setting allows plants to bask in a hot-house environment that keeps them greener longer. ... ...Recent NASA-sponsored research from a team of geographers in Boston University's Center for Remote Sensing shows that the growing season for vegetation in about 70 urban areas in North Ameri...Springtime blooms seen earlier now than in the past, say Boston University biologists
(Boston) Taking something of a back-to-the-future approach, biologists from Boston University have looked into the past to find that flowering plants growing today blossom more than a week earlier than a century ago. Their findings, being presented at the Society for Conservation Biology's annual meeting in New York City July 30 August 2, show that among the plants studied in Boston's Arnold A...New discovery could provide tool to detect whether a cancer will develop and spread
When a physician discovers cancer in a patient, the first thing the doctor wants to know is whether that cancer has spread, or "metastasized." This metastasis signifies that the patient has entered a new and potentially lethal phase of the disease. A new study opens up the possibility of detecting whether a tumor will spread long before a patient ever reaches that dangerous phase.... ...Scienti...Scientists identify molecular link driving spread of skin cancer
An international team of scientists has identified an important molecular link involved in the spread or metastasis of melanoma to other organs such as the lungs. ...... By introducing a synthetic peptide that mimics one component of this link, the researchers blocked this cellular interaction, significantly deterring the migration of cancer cells beyond the original tumor site. Blocking this p...Secret behind hard exoskeletons, spreading wings revealed
A team of biologists has discovered the structure and genetic sequence of the hormone that makes insects develop their hard outer shells and allows them to spread their wings. The findings answer more than 40 years of questions about insect development.... ...Using the fruit fly, the researchers determined the genetic sequence of the hormone bursicon, confirmed that it is responsible for the hard...Study suggests first molecular target to halt spread of HPV
HERSHEY, PA-Penn State College of Medicine researchers have discovered the first molecular therapy to target cancer-causing components and thereby destroy a bona fide human papillomavirus (HPV) infection.... ..."Our results suggest that targeting therapies to the RNA that encodes a specific pair of proteins in HPV may break a chain that, left unhindered, promotes cellular proliferation and, poten...Parent-offspring conflict in the evolution of vertebrate reproductive mode
In the May 2004 issue of The American Naturalist, Bernard Crespi and Christina Semeniuk (Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC) explore issues of placental development and its relationship to the transmittal of genes related to human health. ......Animals reproduce by egg-laying (oviparity) or live birth (viviparity) and in many species viviparity involves transfer of nutrients via a placenta. We...More useful plants may sprout from gene role discovery
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - It may be possible to alter plants so they are more nutritious and easier to process without weakening them so much they fall over, according to Purdue University researchers who found a new twist in a plant formation biochemical pathway.... ...Decreasing the amount of two acids in plant cell walls may enhance livestock feed digestibility for better nutrition, while increas...UNC researchers identify virus gene involved in tumor cell growth, spread
CHAPEL HILL -- In studying a virus that causes the skin cancer Kaposi's sarcoma, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill scientists have identified a viral gene that switches on cellular genes involved in promoting tumor cell growth and metastasis throughout the body. ...The K1 gene in Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) initiates these processes by causing cells to secrete growth...'Springer' - A solution to water pollution?
A faster, more efficient way of tracking water pollution and carrying out environmental surveys is being developed....... Work has begun to build "Springer", an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) that will be able to operate in shallow water. ...... Funded primarily by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), this innovative vehicle will be built at the University of Plymouth...Chestnut trees to spread across landscape again, says Purdue scientist
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A Purdue University researcher is working to restore the American chestnut, an important wildlife tree and timber resource that dominated the landscape from Maine to Mississippi before it was driven to near-extinction by a fungal disease introduced about 100 years ago.......Doug Jacobs, assistant professor of forestry in the Hardwood Tree Improvement and Regeneration Center...Experts to lecture in US cities this spring about new human origins research
Should we follow Atkins or Pritikin to eat well and live right? How did sunlight effect skin coloration? Why and how did we begin to walk upright? ...... The Leakey Foundation has joined forces with scientific organizations across the US to present the 2004 Speaker Series on Human Origins which will attempt to answer these questions with new evidence and theories....... The 2004 series will feat...Despite confinement, crop genes can spread fast to wild
MADISON - With the slim chance that farmers will stop planting crops containing genes from other organisms, researchers have started to develop strategies that trap these foreign genes, reducing the risk that they'll spread to wild relatives. ... ...But an investigation by scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Minnesota-St. Paul shows that these containment str...Molecular mechanisms that trigger flowering in spring
The appearance of flowers in spring is one of the surest signs that winter is over, but how do plants follow the changing seasons, and use this information to trigger the formation of flowers? That plants contain internal clocks enabling them to measure day length was proposed 80 years ago and was initially controversial, but now the mechanisms by which plants measure time are being explained by...Comets spread Earth-life around galaxy, say scientists
If comets hitting the Earth could cause ecological disasters, including extinctions of species and climate change, they could also disperse Earth-life to the most distant parts of the Galaxy....... The "splash-back" from a large comet impact could throw material containing micro-organisms out of the planet's atmosphere, suggest scientists from Cardiff University Centre for Astrobiology....... Alt...Researchers determine reason for deadly spread of 1918 influenza
The explosive spread of the influenza virus during the 1918 pandemic that killed some 20 million people worldwide was likely enabled by the unique structure of a protein on the virus's surface, researchers are reporting. The newly determined structure of the viral protein reveals that the 1918 strain of influenza underwent subtle alterations that enabled it to bind with deadly efficiency to human...Thailand dengue hemorrhagic fever epidemics spread in waves emanating from Bangkok
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health studying dengue hemorrhagic fever epidemics in Thailand have determined that the disease radiates outward in a traveling wave from Bangkok, the nation's largest city, to infect every province in the country. According to the researchers' analysis, the spatial-temporal wave travels at a speed of 148 kilometers per month and takes a...Spruce bark beetle outbreaks examined at Alaska Symposium
ANCHORAGE, Alaska. January 20, 2004. About 4 million acres of spruce forests were infested and killed by the spruce beetle in south-central Alaska in the past decade--more than twice the amount affected from 1919 to 1989. Fire, of course, spreads rapidly through these dead forests causing catastrophic damage to life and property. ... Several state and federal agencies are presenting a symposium t...UF study suggests life on Earth sprang from borax minerals
GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Researchers at the University of Florida say they have shown that minerals were key to some of the initial processes that formed life on Earth. ... Specifically, a borax-containing mineral known as colemanite helps convert organic molecules found in interstellar dust clouds into a sugar, known as ribose, central to the genetic material called RNA. This announcement provides...Changes in shape of single protein plays key role in the spread of cancer cells
The discovery of how a protein called vinculin undergoes exquisitely precise changes in its shape is helping to answer some major questions about the life of cells, the development of tissues and organs and the spread of cancer from one part of the body to another. These findings, to be published in the Jan. 8, 2004, issue of Nature, were made by scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospita...NASA scientists discover spring thaw makes a difference
Using a suite of microwave remote sensing instruments aboard satellites, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., and the University of Montana, Missoula, have observed a recent trend of earlier thawing across the northern high latitudes.... ...This regional thawing trend, advancing almost one day a year since 1988, has the potential to alter the cycle of...atmosp...Marine pathogens spread much faster than their terrestrial counterparts
It has become increasingly clear that pathogen epidemics are as significant a component of marine systems as they are in terrestrial systems. At an NCEAS working group on Diseases in the Ocean, McCallum, Harvell and Dobson collated data on epidemic spread from both terrestrial and marine environments. Their analysis, in a forthcoming issue of Ecology Letters, shows that marine epidemics spread a...Unfaithful songbirds increase offspring fitness
This release is also available in ...............Bird parents typically raise their young in seemingly peaceful cooperation and were therefore seen as reflecting the ideal of monogamous partnership. This view has changed dramatically over the last decade: since molecular 'fingerprinting' techniques became available, behavioural ecologists have routinely used paternity analyses to study mating sy...New study shows why hypertension affects black males disproportionately
Bethesda, MD Hypertension (HT) remains a public health challenge because it is so prevalent and leads to increases in cardiovascular disease. It is a disease that disproportionately affects African-American males. Not only does HT occur more frequently among this group, it also presents itself earlier in their life, and causes increased complications of cardiovascular diseases compared with whit...SPR Annual Meeting features newsworthy discoveries
The 43rd annual meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research (SPR) will be October 29 November 2, 2003 in Chicago, Illinois. The meeting is being held at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, 151 East Wacker Drive.... ...SPR's annual meeting is widely regarded as a leading forum for presentations on cutting-edge research on the connections between the physiological and psychological aspects of...Male baboons recognize and care for their own offspring
DURHAM, N.C. -- In a discovery that suggests the fathering instinct might be more fundamental to primate evolution than previously believed, researchers have shown that male baboons give preferential protection to their own genetic offspring. ...The finding that male baboons somehow recognize their own genetic offspring -- despite the fact that multiple males may mate with each female in a troop...Stem cell defects are key to Hirschsprung's disease
ANN ARBOR, MI Scientists at the University of Michigan Medical School have identified defective stem cells as the key to a serious, sometimes life-threatening, intestinal disorder called Hirschsprung's disease, which affects one in 5,000 newborn infants. ...... Babies born with this disease don't develop ganglion cells specialized nerve cells in the large intestine, which trigger contractions t...Common nutrients fed to pregnant mice altered their offspring's coat color
DURHAM, N.C. A startling scientific discovery about nutrition demonstrates that we are more than what we eat: we are likely what our mothers ate, too, according to scientists at the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center.... ...In a study of nutrition's effects on development, the scientists showed they could change the coat color of baby mice simply by feeding their mothers four common nutritional su...Circadian influence in plants more widespread than previously thought
HANOVER, NH While picking apart the genetic makeup of the plant Arabidopsis, two Dartmouth researchers made a startling discovery. They found that approximately 36 percent of its genome is potentially regulated by the circadian clock, which is three and a half times more than had previously been estimated. ... ...The study, which appears in the June issue of Plant Physiology, was conducted by C....Study traces global spread of virulent dengue virus to US doorstep
CHAPEL HILL -- A new study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill describes the emergence and spread of a virulent form of dengue virus from the Indian subcontinent to Latin America, including Mexico.... The study, which appears online this week in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, a publication of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, used viral genetics to...Distinctive genetic program guides breast cancer's deadly spread
Researchers have peered inside breast cancer's toolbox and identified a set of rogue genes that accelerates the spread of cancer from its primary site in the breast to a secondary location in bone marrow. The genes identified by the scientists are distinct from those that spawn the initial tumor, which invites speculation about whether different cancers bear unique "gene expression signatures" th...Scientists find protein that controls prostate cancer's spread
ANN ARBOR, MI Cancer specialists know that it's not usually prostate cancer itself that kills it's the spread of the cancer from the prostate to the rest of the body. But relatively little is known about exactly what makes some men's cancers spread, or metastasize, while other tumors stay put.... ...Now, a new study by scientists at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center reveals...'Bacteria-eating' viruses may spread some infectious diseases
A strep-infected child in a daycare center plays with a toy, puts it in her mouth and crawls away. Another child plays with the same toy and comes down with strep.... ...Until now, scientists thought that disease-causing bacteria left on the toy was the culprit in transferring the disease from the first child to the second. New research at The Rockefeller University shows that the culprit sometim...Arsenic in the water of private wells in New England is more widespread than previously thought and its threat to residents may be growing because of increasing private well use, according to a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey. Chronic exposure to small amounts of arsenic has been linked to cancer. But people can keep their water's arsenic levels in check by careful monitoring and filterin...Dutch epidemiologists have calculated that partial vaccination can stop outbreaks of swine fever. What's more, mother sows do not need to be vaccinated. The research was carried out at the Institute for Animal Science and Health, Lelystad, and Utrecht University. ...... PhD student Don Klinkenberg calculated that partial vaccinations do not exceed the limit for the outbreak of an epidemic. If the...