From the corner of the eye: Paying attention to attention
...demonstration, the neurons respond when a stimulus appears within a window (indicated by the circle) covering a small part of the visual field that the eye sees. This window is known as the neurons receptive field. Whenever the stimuli entered the neurons receptive field, the cell produced a volley of electr...Specific type of cell death may accelerate decompensated heart failure
...cess that plays a normal role in cell function. It appears to be an adaptive response that protects the body in times of stress or starvation. But in response to other forms of stress such as hypertension, which can lead to cardiovascular disease, autophagy might also lead to harmful changes in the heart mus...New imaging method clarifies nutrient cycle
...he global carbon and nitrogen cycle. Their study appears July 5 as an advanced online publication of The ISME Journal, at www.nature.com/ismej. A state of the art NanoSIMS instrument (short for nanometer-scale, secondary ion mass spectrometry) located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory can image a...Common environmental chemicals in diet affect fetal ovarian development
... breeding problems in wild animals. Fertility also appears to be declining among humans and there has also been a rise in reproductive defects observed in newborn babies. Until now, most studies have looked at a short-lived exposure to high doses of single compounds, and have usually done so in mice and ra...Researchers identify genetic mutation that may alter tumor cell proliferation
...ctal and ovarian cancers. The altered form of AKT1 appears to cause tumor cell proliferation and may play a role in making cells resistant to certain types of therapies. The findings are reported in an advance online publication (AOP) of the journal Nature. The PI3-Kinase/AKT pathway is among the most comm...Alzheimer's prevention role discovered for prions
... mad cow disease and vCJD, has been identified. It appears that the normal prions produced by the body help t...ful beta-amyloid proteins were able to form. It appears that PrPc, the normal prion protein, exerts its beneficial effect by stopping an enzyme called beta-...Color is in the eye of the beholder
... striking color properties. Indeed, in a bottle it appears red, but it looks green in a salad dressing or mixed with yoghurt. Samo and Marko Krefts paper examines the remarkable two-tone (or dichromatic) color of pumpkin seed oil, by the use of a combination of imaging and CIE (International Commission o...News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
...yzes peroxynitrite breakdown. Thus, vasoprotection appears to be an important component of ischemic preconditioning....Stem cell procedure successfully treats amyloidosis patients
...nts who ultimately achieve a complete response and appears to be associated with an improvement in overall su...n tolerate this treatment approach, such treatment appears to result in the highest complete hematologic response rate of any treatment for AL amyloidosis to d...Tough tubes -- Carbon nanotubes endure heavy wear and tear
...d carbon nanotube arrays under cyclic compression, appears in the July issue of Nature Nanotechnology. Despite extensive research over the past decade into the mechanical properties of carbon nanotube structures, this study is the first to explore and document their fatigue behavior, said co-author Victor Pu...Key to tackling malaria may lie in bed nets for adults and older children
... in these high-risk groups. However, this strategy appears to overlook the benefits of protecting the rest of the population. Using recently-developed models of mosquito behaviour and mortality, researchers at the Ifakara Health Research and Development Centre in Tanzania, led by Dr Gerry Killeen, a Well...CU researchers solve mystery of how DNA strands separate
...n on its own. The research found that the helicase appears to actively exert a force onto the fork and separate the two strands. "A simple passive unwinding mechanism does not explain our data," said Michelle Wang, associate professor of physics and the paper's senior author. "Defects in helicases are associ...New approach to pulmonary hypertension shows promise
...sion program and senior author of the study, which appears today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Much like cancer, pulmonary hypertension is caused by the uncontrolled proliferation of cells. In the case of pulmonary hypertension, these cells build up in the pulmonary arteries, bloc...Marine worm opens new window on early cell development
...lls. Platynereis dumerilii, the researchers wrote, appears to have retained ancestral morphological and genom...invertebrates used in the UO research. The protein appears to be conserved throughout the animal kingdom. In humans suffering from a variety of cancers, a b...Early fire risk for mountains near Los Angeles
... autumn Santa Ana winds in Southern California, it appears the stage for these events is set much earlier than usual this year. Being prepared early is thus even more important than usual. The study will be published later this year in the International Journal of Wildland Fire. Dennison and Moritz conduc...Stressed-out African naked mole-rats may provide clues about human infertility
...s by this behaviour affects their fertility. There appears to be a total block to puberty in almost all the non-breeding mole-rats so that their hormones are kept down and their reproductive tracts are under-developed. Currently, we think that the behavioural interactions between the queen and the non-bree......c test to determine fertility status. The study appears in the latest issue of Molecular Medicine. The semen samples were collected from men three to five days after a period of sexual abstinence. The scientists had no idea when analyzing levels of MIF whether the sample came from any of the 68 men who ha...Modern brains have an ancient core
... contain a light-sensitive pigment, while RF-amide appears to be secreted in response to certain chemicals. The EMBL scientists now assume that such multifunctional sensory neurons are among the most ancient neuron types. Their role was likely to directly convey sensory cues from the ancient marine environme...Critical protein prevents DNA damage from persisting through generations
..., was precisely what they found. The ATM protein appears to have two roles in a B cell: It helps repair the DNA double-strand breaks, and it activates the cell-cycle checkpoint that prevents genetically damaged cells from dividing. "ATM is required for a B cell to know that it has a broken chromosome. And ...Early environmental exposure may accelerate age-related neurodegeneration
...ne-producing neurons as they grew older. The study appears in the June 27 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience . The importance of the study is that it points to a possible role of common mechanisms triggered by iron and paraquat as important in PD, and suggests that therapies that block their effects wou...