Gene identified for Crohn's disease in children
...nd that 64 percent of children with Crohns disease had a specific variant form of the gene ATG16L1, compared with 52 percent of the healthy children. The odds ratio for children with the gene variant was 1.62 compared to control children, meaning that those who have the variant were 62 percent more likel...Synthetic adhesive mimics sticking powers of gecko and mussel
...th have attempted to mimic the gecko foot but have had limited success in replicating the reversible property over many contact cycles. No synthetic mimics have been able to stick past two contact/release cycles, and none work underwater. In contrast, the geckel material created by Messersmith and Haes...UK scientists lift lid on genetics of coronary artery disease
...a number of genetic variants, many which until now had not been thought to be implicated in heart disease." The findings have been welcomed by Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation, which part-funded the study. Discovering new genetic variants shows how ...Nature's secrets yield new adhesive material
...h, who studies the underwater adhesion of mussels, had an idea. What if each synthetic gecko-inspired po...pired by the mussel" As Messersmith mused, nobody had ever tried it and, if successful, this hybrid approach might spawn a new and potentially superior di...... wheat production for the first time. Word of what had been done in Mexico spread to Pakistan and India n...l Peace Prize for the workthe first time the award had been made for developments in Agriculture. The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, k...Study finds hereditary link to premenstrual depression
...DD over at least three months. Another 56women who had no history of mood disorders related to the menstrualcycle served as a comparison group. All the women provided blood samplesfor genetic analysis. The team discovered four specific genetic variants, called singlenucleotide polymorphisms, in one of ...Ability to listen to 2 things at once is largely inherited, says twin study
... or fraternal and a hearing test to make sure they had normal hearing. If a trait is purely genetic, id...at differences in performance for those activities had a strong genetic component. Participants showed the widest range of abilities on those tests in whic...Increase in creeping vines signals major shift in southern US forests
...bout 100 vines in each plot. By 2002, that average had increased to slightly more than 200 vines per plot. While the second-growth, Savannah River forest had fewer vines by the end of the study, the researchers calculated a 10-fold increase in the number of ...News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
.... Brain slices from mice lacking Chordin (Chrd-/-) had enhanced paired-pulse facilitation and an increase...tion for BMP. Nerve terminals in Chrd-/- mice also had an increase in docked vesicles. Perfusion of BMP2 in wild-type slices mimicked the effects seen in s...Conservation Leadership Program announces 2007 awardees
...d from July 1 to July 5, 2007. Award winning teams had the opportunity to share their initial research findings with an international audience of more than 1,500 conservation practitioners. The Society for Conservation Biology is the premier society for conservation biologists, bringing together experts ...Malaria -- Effective insecticide-repellent synergy against mosquito vectors
... based their investigations on previous work which had revealed a strong synergy between the two components. A combination of the two had proved to be much more effective than the straightforward addition of their respective properties. M...Cardiac patches stimulate regeneration, improve function after heart attack
...uced heart attacks. In half the rats, a patch that had been incubated with periostin was placed over the ...cally-active periostin. The periostin-treated rats had improved cardiac pumping ability, as indicated by increased ejection fraction and improved ventricul...American Chemical Society's Weekly PressPac -- July 11, 2007
...rs analyzed organic and conventional tomatoes that had been dried and archived under identical conditions...es. However, data validating preen oils usefulness had been available for only a single species of bird. In the new study, scientists report extending tha...Tips from the Journals of the American Society for Microbiology
...combination of oral and intramuscular vaccinations had significantly reduced bacterial loads and no detec...scularly followed by orally were not protected and had decreased antibody responses. This study demonstrates the ability to induce long-term immunity ...Immune system 'escape hatch' gives cancer cells traction
... the blocked immune system. Previous research had confirmed that MDSCs, produced in the bone marrow,...ere attracted to tumors, but until now, scientists had not identified exactly how the cells inhibit the immune systems ability to mount an attack. By e...Metabolic syndrome -- don't blame the belly fat
...insulin resistance in one cohort, these volunteers had none of the other confounding factors typically as...cogen, the young, lean, insulin-resistant subjects had a marked defect in muscle glycogen synthesis and diverted much more of their ingested carbohydrate i...Accident-prone? Scientists link brain function to knee injuries
...n of the American Journal of Sports Medicine. We had some data from previous research which suggested t...nder if we could measure whether these individuals had different mental characteristics that made them injury-prone, Swanik said. To identify subjects fo...What determines the speed at which birds fly?
...stic speeds. For example, birds of prey and herons had slow flight speeds, on average, given their mass and wing loading, whereas the average speed for songbirds and shorebirds was faster than would be predicted. This study suggests that there are different functional adaptations affecting flight diffe...Clues to future evolution of HIV come from African green monkeys
...at was transmitted to humans, probably when people had contact with chimpanzee blood from hunting and but...of Health funded the research. Previous research had sketched out the family trees, or phylogenies, of the four species of African green monkeys and thei......ul and clean the lake was and at how much we still had to learn about this lake, said Goulden. In 1995, Goulden helped found The Institute of Mongolian Biodiversity and Ecological Studies to support research into the environmental and economic forces challenging the nation. Mongolia, which last year cel...