A buffet for early human relatives
...ity," the study's authors write. "Another possible explanation is that these individuals were migrating between more wooded habitats and more open savannas." Cerling says the study "shows that our early human relatives were able to eat a varied diet and therefore were more adaptable in savanna environments th...Why our shifty eyes don't drive us crazy
...e (NEI) for the first time provide a circuit-level explanation as to why. "This is a classic problem in neuroscience," says Marc Sommer, assistant professor of neuroscience at Pitt, who coauthored the paper with Robert Wurtz, senior investigator at NEI, one of the National Institutes of Health. "People have be...News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
...ntell and Carl-Fredrik Ekerot Often the simplest explanation can be the best one. Jrntell and Ekerot argue that this is the case for the way in which cerebellar granule cells process somatosensory information. A granule cell has about four dendrites, each receiving input rom a single excitatory mossy fiber sy...A potential biological cause for sudden infant death syndrome
...vented. The findings also provide a biological explanation for why SIDS occurs twice as often in males than females male SIDS infants had significantly fewer 5-HT1A receptors than female SIDS infants. In addition, serotonin abnormalities help explain why infants under 6 months are most vulnerable to SID...Electronic chip, interacting with the brain, modifies pathways for controlling movement
...mulation site. The researchers said that a likely explanation for these changes is the strengthening of pathways within the cortex from the recording to the stimulation site. This strengthening may have been produced by the continuous synchronization of activity at the two sites, generated by the recurrent brai...American research finds twins more likely to have premature menopause
...y to early menopause." With identical twins, the explanation for the excess of POF would be different according to Dr Gosden, and was, as yet, unknown and more puzzling. Studies in twins and mother-daughter pairs had shown a strong heritable component for menopausal age, although the genetic factors responsib...Steep oxygen decline halted first land colonization by Earth's sea creatures
...Dinosaurs thrived and nothing else did. There's an explanation for that, and it is that the air sac breathing system in dinosaurs and their descendants, modern birds, is more efficient than systems used by other organisms," Ward said. He and his colleagues tested that hypothesis by examining the breathing syst...Hormone resistance of pituitary tumors and Cushing disease explained
...ther of these proteins, thus providing a molecular explanation for the hormone resistance that is the hallmark, and likely first event, in the formation of these tumors. The novel insight provided by knowledge of the basic mechanism of hormone resistance will lead to the rational design of therapeutic approache...Mass extinction's cause: 'Sick Earth'
... strike, as in that famous event. The most likely explanation for the disappearance of up to 90 percent of species 250 million years ago, said David Bottjer, is that "the earth got sick." Bottjer, professor of earth sciences in the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, leads a research group presenting se...Insights into activity-dependent neuronal growth through RSRF-supported research
... express MeCP2. The authors also may have found an explanation for the sleep disturbances that are a frequent complication of RTT: one of the brain regions in which they observed activity-dependent phosphorylation of MeCP2 at S421 is involved in regulating circadian rhythms, including the sleep-wake cycle. N...Women's math performance affected by theories on sex differences: UBC researchers
...formances belonged to women who received a genetic explanation for female underachievement in math or those who w...erachievement. Women who received the experiential explanation performed better on par with those who were led to believe there are no sex differences in math. T...Understanding climate change: Public forum in Philadelphia next week
...in global climate change will give a non-technical explanation of current scientific research and its implications. Science and environmental enthusiasts of all ages, as well as citizens interested in making sense of conflicting statements about climate change, are encouraged to attend and ask questions. Part...American Andrew Z. Fire shares Nobel Prize for discovering RNAi
... A key experiment in Fire's lab later provided the explanation for what was happening--the researchers mixed sense RNA with a small amount of antisense RNA, and the two strands together generated the silencing effect. It was found that the earlier experiments had included trace amounts of antisense RNA, thus cau...Home, home on the range: How much space does an animal really need?
...different layers of 'complexity' we found a simple explanation for our deer, which contrasts with several common assumptions about roe deer behavior," Brger explains. Neighboring animals differ in the amount of area they use depending on the most abundant habitat type inside their home range. The deer also re...Chemical genomic screening identifies novel therapeutic strategies for cancer
...redictor of poor prognosis in ALL, but the precise explanation for sensitivity versus resistance to GC in ALL as well as how to overcome GC resistance is not clear. These researchers applied gene expression analysis to identify genetic signatures associated with GC-sensitive and GC-resistant ALL samples. They th......t the question "why?" has remained open. A popular explanation has been an evolutionary, sexual-selection one tha...the value of a potential mate. But whereas that explanation makes intuitive sense when it comes to human faces, Winkielman said, it strains credulity when appli...Hard-wiring the fruit fly's visual system
... and connections that need to be made. A possible explanation for the findings is that the fruit fly has many fewer neurons than vertebrates, and the system can therefore just rely on the genetic components in flies," said Bellen. "In vertebrates, complexity is added because of the challenge of millions of ne...ACS Weekly PressPac -- September 6, 2006
...he Peoples' Republic of China report a biochemical explanation for the Black-Bone Silky Fowl's 1,000-year-old rep...disorders, according to researchers. Seeking an explanation for the bird's reputed medical abilities, which date to at least the early 1000s A.D., Mingyong Xie ...Scent of father checks daughter's maturity
...rcher says the study is not a human anomaly but an explanation of how pheromonal cues modulate sexual maturity, to enhance mating and prevent inbreeding. "Prevention of inbreeding is so crucial to successfully spread healthy genes that anti-inbreeding strategies such as the use of pheromones seem to be conserved......s, they were left with 33 who had no known genetic explanation for their condition. Additional testing revealed the four mutations in DSG2. "We knew right away that we had found something very significant," says lead author Mark Awad, B.A., a medical and predoctoral sciences student at Hopkins. "The mutatio...