'Defensive' action by influenza viruses demonstrated by Hebrew university researcher
... before you know it, they've found a way to defend themselves and neutralize the anti-viral treatment. How, exactly, do the viruses do it? In an article published as the cover story in a recent issue of the journal Proteins, a Hebrew University of Jerusalem researcher, Prof. Isaiah (Shy) T. Arkin, has revealed...Single isolated mouse skin cell can generate into variety of epidermal tissues
...y to represent stemness -- the ability to maintain themselves as well as to differentiate -- and that is very interesting because it suggests that different stem cells of the body have certain similarities." Because the same cell markers used in the mice experiment are thought to be found in human follicle ste...Identifying tick genes could halt disease, bioterrorism threat
...they leap, sink their mouths into flesh, and gorge themselves while at the same time spreading insidious diseases. Ticks feed on a diverse group of hosts including people, pets, livestock, reptiles and birds. Most of these are susceptible to the pathogens carried by one type of tick or another. Ticks have uniqu...Genuine stem cells found in skin might treat hair loss, wounds
...chers said. The putative skin stem cells reproduce themselves seemingly indefinitely in the laboratory, the stud... and skin--are defined by the ability to reproduce themselves and give rise to the full complement of cells that make up the specialized tissue in which they are ...Optimizing protein's 'death domain' halts leukemia in laboratory study
...as BH3-only proteins. To ensure that cells destroy themselves when appropriate, despite contrary signals from anti-death molecules, BH3-only proteins contain a peptide subunit, termed "BH3", that is made of amino acids and functions as a critical "death domain." This subunit forms a coiled structure called an "...Convulsions in worms mimic epileptic seizures
...transmitters. In normal worms, these sacs arranged themselves in an orderly fashion at the synapse, but in the L..." said Caldwell. "Trafficking defects may manifest themselves in different ways in different cell types, and seizures may be one result in neurons." Caldwell ho...Purdue study finds antioxidant protects metal-eating plants
... some of the first data showing how plants protect themselves from the damaging effects of those metals. "One major hurdle to developing hyperaccumulating plants is toxicity," said John Freeman, first author of the paper and a doctoral student working with Salt. "For a plant to hyperaccumulate metal, it has to ...Mouse study shows NPAS3 and NPAS1 genes may be linked to psychosis
...ory neurons, which pass electrical signals amongst themselves and act as the brain's wiring. The role of inhibitory interneurons, on the other hand, is to dampen the activity of excitatory neurons. The NPAS1 and NPAS3 proteins are transcription factors that can activate or deactivate other genes. Just which...How an insidious mutation fools DNA replication
...ave been made. These mistakes or mismatches reveal themselves as malformations that distort the active site -- like kinks in the spaghetti strand that would clog the Cheerio. Such malformations trigger a repair mechanism to correct the mismatch. The researchers' initial studies revealed that the polymerase bio...One-hundred-fifty year old lessons of John Snow still relevant today
...ive Michigan State University professors who call themselves the "snowflakes" to spend six years writing a comprehensive biography on the life and times of John Snow. Titled "Cholera, Chloroform, and the Science of Medicine: A Life of John Snow," the recently published book is what the authors call a "scienti...New tool predicts how long pollutants will stay in soil
...eral content, but non-ionic chemicals tend to make themselves at home in the soil's natural organic matter. For many years, environmental chemists have made predictions about how long the non-ionic pollutants will stay there by using octanol, an organic solvent, as a chemical stand-in for natural organic materi...Tiny collars fitted on youngest-ever tiger cubs
... tiger cubs until the collars fall off or the cubs themselves die. The transmitters emit a "mortality" signal if the unit remains stationary for more than one hour. Finding the animal quickly is crucial in ascertaining the cause of death. WCS is the only conservation organization that studies tigers in every c...Strep disrupts blood clotting to infect humans
...ase to block the blood clotting response and allow themselves to move more freely around the human host's circulatory system. The molecule is so specific, it only works on humans, not on other animals. "The theory is that, as bacteria cause a local infection and begin to grow, the clotting system produces clo...Bright idea could doom cancer and viruses, say Purdue scientists
...AYETTE, Ind. - Cancer and viruses may someday find themselves blinded by the light of therapies based on recent ...ison said. "Since blood cells and platelets do not themselves have nucleic acid, they are safe from the compound. But it is potentially possible to purify blood o...Women who have donated eggs sought for national study
...usands of American women have donated eggs to help themselves or other women bear children. But little is known about what motivated these women to become egg donors and what, if any, physical and psychological effects resulted from their experience. To answer these and other questions, University of Washingto...UCSD biologists develop 'super-endurance' strain of mice
...lammation. By limiting the cells' ability to guide themselves with the HIF-1 protein to the sites of infection by honing in on the low oxygen levels associated with infections, Johnson and his colleagues found a new method of reducing inflammation. They also noticed that these mice had pronounced endurance capa...Genetic clues found for common congenital brain disorder
... also lacked coordination and were unable to right themselves if they fell over. Although the authors conclude that "heterozygous loss of ZIC1 and ZIC4 is the cause of Dandy-Walker malformation in deletion 3q2 patients," they caution that other genes are clearly involved, which is why only 15 percent of the mi...U of T study identifies possible stem cells in pancreas
... must exhibit two properties: the ability to renew themselves over the entire life of the organism and some ability for the parent cell to generate varied cell types for example islet cells and exocrine cells. Pancreatic stem cells could provide a plentiful supply of beta cells for transplant treatments. A fin...Restoring sweetgrass to the South Carolina lowcountry
...ommunication and to learn to manage the sweetgrass themselves opens up more possibilities for managing this resource in the future."......nism by which animals and humans instantly protect themselves against threats ranging from an attacking predator to an incoming golf ball. Researchers Michael Graziano and Dylan Cooke have shed new light on the neural machinery that controls flinching by dialing the response up or down using drugs. Their studie...