JCI table of contents, November 15 2004
...termed type 1 mosacism. Several patients have been described whom experience both patterned lesions and, in rem...*********************************** New structure described for kidney filter: the slit diaphragm One of the main functions of the kidney is the formation of ...Researchers piece together the puzzle of Hailey-Hailey skin disease
...termed type 1 mosacism. Several patients have been described whom experience both patterned lesions and, in remaining areas of skin,also show a milder form of the disorder termed type 2 mosaicism. In the November 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, German researcher Jorge Frank and colleague...Dinosaurs in bullet-proof vests
...is known as haversian bone, a form which was first described in human beings in the 17th century by the British anatomist Dr. Clopton Havers. In the course of people's lives their bones are restructured. The trabeculae in the inside of the bones dissolve and are replaced by numerous small tubes of bone known a...Study in Royal Society journal on evidence for impact of global warming on bird populations
...ows that the force distributions can be accurately described by an analogue of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which governs the directions of changes in thermal systems such as chemical reactions. In thermal systems the balance between the two fundamental driving forces of energy and entropy governs the dir...Gene expression profiling aids in ovarian cancer prognosis
... Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC). The findings, described in an advance on-line publication of the December issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, represent the first time that this type of genetic test has proven useful as a prognostic tool for ovarian cancer, which accounts for approximately 26,000 ne...Tips from the Journals of the American Society for Microbiology
... only 2 to 3% viablefollowing treatment. "We have described a method by which bacterial biofilms can bestimulated to detach from surgical stainless steel by use of a smallelectric current to disconnect the link between the biofilm and theconducting," say the researchers. "This method can be used incombinatio...Scientists achieve self-assembly of spider silk fiber in insect cells
...y silkworms. The achievement by the research team, described in an article in the Nov. 23 issue of Current Biology , opens the way to commercial development of this spider fiber for numerous industrial applications. Silk has been in use by mankind for thousands of years. However, unlike silkworms, spiders a...Census of Marine Life - Discoveries and Highlights 2004: Scientists add 4m+ records, 13,000 species
... About 230,000 marine species have been described by scientists and there is great debate about how many more exist, but it will be several times this number, perhaps ten times. As part of the Census, the undersea race is on to discover these unknown species using old and new technologies in all th...Studies in Royal Society journals include stress in birds and depletion of medieval fish stocks
...rocesses. The uptake of food, for instance, can be described by at least three mathematical functions that are indistinguishable for all practical purposes. If, however, used in a standard predator-prey model these functions may lead to drastically different predictions of the population dynamics in this syste...Spider silks, the ecological materials of tomorrow?
...chen explains that there are currently over 34,000 described species of spider, each with a specific tool-kit of silks with different mechanical properties serving specific purposes. For example, major ampullate silk, a very tough silk with a tensile strength comparable to Kevlar, is used for the primary drag...JCI table of contents, December 1 2004
...y of California, Los Angeles discuss the mechanism described by Li and colleagues by which lipid accumulation i... would be important to repeat the same experiments described here.with other types of stem cells[as] they may represent a better perspective for the stem cell th...Common lineage suggested for viruses that infect hosts from all three domains of life
...rder organisms); bacteria; and archaea (a recently described group of microorganisms that differ from bacteria and are commonly found in extreme environments like geysers, and alkaline, acidic or salty waters). It is difficult to study viral evolution, Burnett says, because viruses live symbiotically with the...Scientists discover key egg enzyme for blocking sperm entry after fertilization
...of the egg. Although this phenomenon was initially described over 100 years ago, the mechanism responsible for peroxide generation after fertilization is not well understood. The respiratory burst is not limited to eggs; other cells of the body can also generate peroxide. White blood cells produce it in respon...Efforts to clone primates move forward
... techniques, including the "gentle squeeze" method described by South Korean researchers who earlier this year ... 2003, Drs. Schatten, Simerly and their colleagues described fundamental flaws they observed in nonhuman primate embryonic development despite using the techniqu...Canola study solves seed oil mystery
...m used by plants to create seed oil. The results, described Wednesday in the British journal Nature, address a longstanding question in plant biology why do oilseed plants rely on a seemingly inefficient metabolic process to produce such prodigious amount of energy-rich oil? The answer, according to the MSU ...Injectable gel could speed repair of torn cartilage
...e it is needed. The biodegradable material will be described in the Jan. 10 issue of Biomacromolecules , a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the worlds largest scientific society. Torn cartilage is an extremely painful, hard-to-heal injury, particularly since cartilage does not regenera...Hudson's Bay Company fur trapping policies set stage for modern environmental struggles
...y, he set out to create what other historians have described as a "fur desert" in the Snake River Basin. This involved trapping as many animals as possible to make the area unprofitable to American trappers. Simpson's strategy worked, but decimated the beaver population. Simpson used other strategies along ...Dwarf mistletoe reveals its sexual secrets
...n your interpretation). "In all previously described flowering plants, the formation of the egg and its accessory cells is thought to trigger a chemical signal that causes the pollen tube to find the egg and fertilize it. But with my dwarf mistletoe, the pollen tube, which contains the plant's sperm, g...Cigarette smoking exacerbates alcohol-induced brain damage
...motional regulation. "So, is all the brain damage described in alcoholics in treatment due to chronic excessive alcohol consumption," asked Durazzo, "or does chronic comorbid smoking also contribute to some of the damage observed?" Researchers compared 24, one-week-abstinent alcoholics (14 smokers, 10 nonsmok...Femtosecond laser technique opens new opportunities for research on neural regeneration
...ly destroy extremely tiny structures. "When Yanik described to me what this instrument can do, I immediately thought of my work on the nervous system of C. elegans and came up with a nerve regeneration experiment we could do together, and I designed the experiments," said Hulusi Cinar. The technique uses ex...