Research out this week helps us understand basics of how neurons communicate
...cess that allows muscles to contract, the heart to beat and nerve cells to communicate with one another. The research is teaching us how a very integral part of our cellular structure works." Communication between nerve cells occurs when calcium enters a nerve cell and causes the cell to release a chemica......nge carcasses of dead animals maybe so they could beat hyenas or other scavengers to dinner, or maybe to "get to the leftovers soon enough," Bramble says. Scavenging "is a more reliable source of food" than hunting, he adds. "If you are out in the African savannah and see a column of vultures on the ho......are collections of ones and zeros, changing to the beat of a constant clock." Working with computer specialists, however, Berger has created neural-like computer systems that can model the neural time coding and make distinctions the way nerves do. Four years ago, he and a colleague used...Hummingbirds lose power at high altitudes
...em hovering inside a Plexiglas cube to obtain wing beat frequency and stroke amplitude, from which he could calculate the power exerted in normal hovering. The second experiment, however, measured the maximum power the birds' muscles were capable of. In a setup originally developed by Dudl...Powerful X-ray beams at Argonne, new electronic flight simulator
...les' are turned on and off at high speed (one wing beat takes 5/1000th of a second) has been a mystery." The team used extremely bright beams of X-rays at the BioCAT facility (a NIH- supported research center developed by IIT) at the APS and a "virtual-reality flight simulator" for flies (designed by coll...Transgenic plants remove more selenium from polluted soil than wild plants, new tests show
...searchers found that the transgenic plants handily beat out their wild-type counterparts. The results raised hopes that the plants might become a viable alternative for cleaning up polluted soil. The new research findings, published Feb. 1 in the journal Environmental Science and Technology , show that ...Discovery clarifies role of peptide in biological clock
...om these mice, they found that many had lost their beat while others were cycling but unable to synch to each other. But when Herzog and Aton added VIP to the mice cells, the synchronicity was restored, showing that VIP couples pacemaker cells and drives rhythms in slave cells. "VIP bet...JCI table of contents, April 1, 2005
EDITORS' PICK: Blocking PLK-1 to beat bladder cancer Surgical removal of part of, or the entire, bladder is commonly used to treat bladder cancer, causing loss of urinary and sexual functions. Thus, novel therapeutic approaches are needed. In a study appearing online on March 10 in a...Yale researchers use laser light to remote control flies
...trols were engineered to alter how the flies jump, beat their wings and fly in an escape response. In other experiments, the light controls were used to activate dopamine neurons that stimulated walking and affected the types of paths the flies chose to follow. Loss of dopamine cell activity in humans und...Remote control flies?: Fly behavior controlled by laser light
...d control over fruit flies, making the flies jump, beat their wings, and fly on command by triggering genetic "remote controls" that the scientists designed and installed in the insects' central nervous systems, according to a new report in the 8 April issue of the journal Cell. Susana Lima and Gero Miese...Carnegie Mellon and U. of Pittsburgh create tool to understand neuron rhythms, learning
...rt out clapping in unison, but then someone sets a beat and everyone follows it. Populations of neurons with similar PRCs can work in the same manner, whereby steady outside input effectively drives them to synchronize their firing," Urban said. The new method combines computational and experimental appr......ystem to help fight crime in areas that are low on beat officers. Safety Dynamics received a Small Business Innovation Research Phase I award from the Navy in 2004 and is working on adapting its system for a lightweight mobile version that could be hand carried into the field....Program finds lost genes in nematode genome
...iction where it's becoming clear that machines can beat human annotators and analysts, on average," he sai...ter power, they'll come up with a machine that can beat the world champion. The same principal applies to developing a machine that can reveal the mysterie...Cigarette smoke exacerbates alcohol's effects on defense against Streptococcus pneumoniae
...e hair-like projections called cilia. These cilia beat in an upward direction to sweep mucus and microorganisms like S. pneumoniae upward and prevent their movement into the lungs. Disease normally occurs when the immune system is compromised or the person is colonized with a new or especially virulen...DNA meets heart drugs with resistance
...n which the atria, or upper chambers of the heart, beat quickly and inconsistently. Expression of potassium channel KCNA5 is confined to cells in the atria and not the ventricle, making it a target for the development of drugs to treat atrial fibrillation. Polymorphisms in KCNA5 have been identified, whi...JCI table of contents September 1, 2005
EDITOR'S PICK Boosting the BCG vaccine to beat tuberculosis Tuberculosis remains a major global health threat. Although more than 3 billion doses of the BCG vaccine have been administered to fight tuberculosis, the ability of the BCG vaccine to protect adults is very limited, as is its efficacy...Molecular defect found that may cause heart failure
...red in the SR determines the strength of the heart beat and how much blood the heart ejects when it contracts. At the end of a contraction, the channels close tightly. Molecular pumps, also located in the walls of the SR, then suck the released calcium back into the SR to prepare for the next contraction...Satellite technology allows scientists to track warm sharks in cold polar seas
...e ability of salmon sharks to maintain their heart beat and supply their warm, active bodies with blood even as the heart cools to 35 F. "This is clearly a unique shark species--the warmest of all gill-breathers in the ocean," Block observes. The salmon shark project is part of the Tagging of Pacific Pela...More males chimps means more territorial patrols, study shows
... launch an attack." During the attacks, the chimps beat and often kill their neighbors. The groups are generally all male, but on rare occasions females---typically infertile---will join the patrol, Mitani said. The patrols and attacks are an important part of the chimp society, he said. "They take up a...... in the future. "It's not that pink bollworm can't beat Bt toxin, but that it hasn't beaten Bt toxin so far." There's a new variety Bt cotton now available that has two different Bt toxins, he said. The team's next step will be to determine how to best use that combination of toxins to stay one step ahead...