FSU scientist links iron imbalance to Parkinson's disease
...h as tremors and balance problems, both in healthy rodents and where risk factors existed. High levels of ...overed that iron deficiencies in healthy risk-free rodents led to decreasing levels of dopamine, the neurotransmitter critical to relaying brain messages that ...International human genome sequencing consortium describes finished human genome sequence
...rose in the human genome after our divergence with rodents some 75 million years ago. Most of these arose through recent gene duplications and are involved with immune, olfactory and reproductive functions. For example, there are two families of genes recently duplicated in the human genome that encode sets ...Early life stress harms mental function and immune system in later years
...n is conserved across species-from the barn owl to rodents to humans-suggesting that these effects are mediated by fundamental mechanisms. The new research was presented at the 34th Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego Insight into one potential mechanism comes from studies showing how m...Researchers reconstruct parts of the genome of a common mammalian ancestor
...results partly from the shorter generation time of rodents but appears to be due to other factors as well. Haussler said that the recent development of new mathematical approaches, such as those created by HHMI investigator Philip Green at the University of Washington, should aid greatly in understanding...UCSD researchers derive lessons about human evolution from chicken genome
...pared to roughly 87 million years since humans and rodents split off from their evolutionary 'family tree.' Added NHRGI director Francis Collins: "Sequencing the chicken genome provides an opportunity to reconstruct the architecture of the ancestral mammalian genome by using chicken as an outgroup." At rou...Alcoholism and excessive food intake may share chemical pathways in the brain
... discovered that giving galanin microinjections to rodents can increase their voluntary alcohol intake. Their findings are published in the December issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research . "Galanin's well-known effects of increasing food intake, especially the intake of fat-rich diets, wa...UCSD bioinformatics researcher studies tumor genome architectures with career award
...ts that account for the different paths humans and rodents have taken since splitting off from a common ancestor roughly 87 million years ago. These rearrangements "happen in cancer naturally," Raphael notes, adding that "by studying the rearrangements we can identify genes that are important for tumor growt...Scientist discover the cellular roots of graying hair
..., Fisher and his colleagues discovered that as the rodents aged and their hair began turning gray, the numbers of stem cells diminished in proportion to the loss of color. The scientists were surprised to observe that, at the same time and the same rate, differentiated, pigmented melanocytes were showing up ...University of Chicago researchers discovered that humans are a 'privileged' evolutionary lineage
...World monkey), rats and mice. (Primates split from rodents about 80 million years ago; humans split from macaques 20 million to 25 million years ago; and rats split from mice 16 million to 23 million years ago.) For each of these brain-related genes, they identified changes that altered the structure of the ...Lack of potential mates has lead to 'sloppy' gene control and risk of disease for humans
...ng us as the pinnacle of evolution but seeing that rodents control their genes much more precisely is somewhat sobering," said Dr Martin Lercher from the University of Bath. "As a species we have become used to the benefits of ever-increasing health care and nutrition, but if what we found is still ongoing, ...Bayou blues: Working to save the US from the worst potential oil, gas and fishing crisis
... with levee construction, grazing by nutria (large rodents that feed on wetland plants) and other factors all contribute to a rapid loss of wetlands. "It's a sum total of all these things working together and not any one thing alone," said Reed. "We know that wetlands survive naturally and have been for tho...Animal parenting, personality and pair-ups
...males, according to Saltzman. In the case of small rodents called voles, researchers have delved deeper into the biological mechanisms underlying the animals' mating behavior. Prairie voles mate for life, while a closely related species, the meadow mole, is promiscuous. The difference seems to be that the r...Studies expand understanding of X chromosome
...eleted from the rodent chromosome after humans and rodents diverged from their common ancestor. Of particular interest was the comparison of the human X chromosome to the sequence of the chicken. Most of the genes on the short arm of the human X are found on chicken chromosome 1, and most of the genes on the...Royal Society study on adaptability of fish to warming oceans
... and the evolution of male reproductive anatomy in rodents by Mr SA Ramm, Professor GA Parker and Dr P Stockl... and behaviour. Here, a correlation is reported in rodents between the size of the sperm-producing testes and the prevalence of multiple paternity within litte...Researchers induce heart cells to proliferate
.... Keating, Engel and colleagues are now studying rodents with simulated heart attacks to see whether agents that inhibit p38 would improve heart function and induce heart regeneration with reduced scar formation. Keating believes this approach, if successful, would prove more practical than stem-cell the...Scientists discover odd-ball rodent
...ors estimate that the Kha-Nyou diverged from other rodents millions of years ago. "To find something so distinct in this day and age is just extraordinary. For all we know, this could be the last remaining mammal family left to be discovered," Dr. Timmins said. Very little is known about the Kha-Nyou, other...To stop evolution: New way of fighting antibiotic resistance demonstrated by Scripps scientists
...ree days after being subjected to antibiotics, the rodents showed no level of resistance to rifampicin or cip...atalytically inactive. In control experiments, the rodents were given rifampicin or ciprofloxin, and the scientists found that nearly all the wild-type E. coli...Tracking a killer: Observing liver invasion by malarial parasites
...modium parasites that express fluorescent tags to rodents through mosquito bites, and then watched for the arrival of the parasites in the livers of the test animals. They observed parasites crawling along the interior of the liver sinusoids (which take the place of capillaries in the liver), sometimes agai...Rodent social behavior encoded in junk DNA
...such as autism has been made in a species of pudgy rodents by researchers funded, in part, by the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and National Center for Research Resources (NCRR). The researchers traced social behavior traits, such as monogamy, to seeming g......Young's finding extends beyond social diversity in rodents to that in apes and humans. Chimpanzees and bonobos, humans' closest relatives, have the vasopressin receptor gene, yet only the bonobo, which has been called the most empathetic ape, has a microsatellite similar to that of humans. According to Yerke...