New study on smallpox in monkeys reveals tactics of a killer
..., on a molecular level, the smallpox virus attacks its victims. The findings shed light on how the virus caused mass death and suffering, and will help point the way to new diagnostics, vaccines and drugs that would be needed in the event of a smallpox bioterror incident. The study, led by David Relman, ...Rutgers-led research offers new clues in the genetic mysteries of maize
...onth discoveries about the inner workings of corn, its origins and evolution, with implications for breed...e research further established that in addition to its immense size, the corn genome is extremely complex due, in part, to positional instability as well a...Study in Royal Society journals presents evidence for inherited factors in homosexuality
...tem and the high levels of variability found among its genes may be of particular importance for the health of populations. We examined the level of diversity at three MHC class II loci in the wolf population of Scandinavia, a population naturally recolonised with a genetic contribution from as few as th...Health, food, new technologies featured during ACS meeting Oct. 17-20 in Peoria, Ill.
... be a healthier alternative than corn syrup due to its higher level of antioxidants, compounds which are believed to fight cancer, heart disease, stroke and other diseases. Honey, which contains a number of antioxidant components that act as preservatives, also shows promise as a replacement for some syn...Texas universities expanding new information network
...LEARN, as well as enable each institution to share its own resources. Computing, visualization, storage systems, data collections, databases, large-scale scientific instruments and sensor networks will all be available and linked by TIGRE over LEARN. TIGRE access to the state's rich set of distributed...Touching research: How white blood cells navigate
..., Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania. Since its birth in 2000, Biomedical Engineering has become the fastest-growing department at the University, with 12 faculty members, thanks largely to significant funding from the Whitaker Foundation. Nearly 150 undergraduate students have majored in biomedic...Effort to control trade in great white sharks gets teeth from international community
...t great white sharks on CITES noted: "In spite of its reputed ferocity, this species is ironically a victim of what is undoubtedly the planet's most deadly species--humans. This listing will help us manage the trade that currently threatens the great white shark by requiring data that harvests are not a...Channel protein converts vibrations to electrical signal
...y, this suggests that once a hair cell senses that its signaling complex has been damaged, it rapidly recycles the components of that pathway so they can be reused or replaced. "So we said, look, if the tip-link protein goes away when you separate the tip links, maybe other parts of the transduction mach...Gladstone researchers resolve key Huntington's disease mystery in Nature cover story
...se, but they have not known in what form it wreaks its havoc. They haven't known, for instance, whether t...g suggests that mutant huntingtin protein inflicts its damage in some form other than as inclusion bodies, which are insoluble, or resistant to being disso...Study using robotic microscope shows how mutant Huntington's protein affects neurons
...ure dish to images it has stored and to manipulate its controls to look at the same neurons over and over again - like time-lapse photography. This allowed the investigators to follow changes in a single neuron or a group of neurons over a period of days. They used this automated microscope to study ne...Award-winning INEEL probe to help safely monitor hazardous waste sites
...am's two-and-a-half-inch-diameter steel GEOPS owes its power to tough materials, unique design, and years of hands-on experience by its creators. "This technology wasn't born from trial and error," Jones says. "We sat down and thought t...INEEL uses extremophile bacteria to ease bleaching's environmental cost
...d the catalase enzyme from T. brockianus and found its industrial half-life to be 15 days instead of the ...f-life -- the amount of time it takes to lose half its effectiveness -- as a yardstick for comparing two enzymes. Large-scale production of the T. brockian...Tips from the Journals of the American Society for Microbiology
...enes from the flu virus, and although safer due to its lack of live viral strains, has shown to be weaker... the surface of T cells and was recently noted for its ability to enhance immune responses resulting from pDNA vaccinations. "Optim...Phillip A. Sharp to present 2004 Ullyot Public Affairs Lecture at Chemical Heritage Foundation
...ular sciences and technologies. He was director of its Center for Cancer Research from 1985 to 1991 and c...ing director of the McGovern Institute at MIT from its establishment in 2000 until recently. In 1999 he was named Institute Professor, a title given to a s...Anti-cholesterol drug treats Alzheimer's disease in mice
..., it plugs into the "active site" of ACAT, jamming its operation and preventing the enzyme from processing cholesterol. Cholesterol is required in the production of the short protein called A peptide, the building block for the amyloid plaque that clogs the brain in Alzheimer's disease, ultimately killin...Flies have morning and evening clocks
...ly Drosophila, however, the circadian clock has its most overt effect on the fly's level of activity. In both flies and humans, the clocks are circuits of neurons that naturally oscillate with a circadian periodicity. Inside these cells, the molecular components of the clock are "rewound" daily by the...Plastic surgeons perform first entire face reconstruction
... back to create a single piece of thick skin, with its own unique blood supply, that would allow for microvascular tissue transfer. Surgeons removed the scarred facial skin, harvested the skin flap from the back, and transferred it to the face. The skin flap was large enough to cover the face completel...Research into the sense of touch in worms wins Eppendorf/Science Prize
...orhabditis elegans, the entire cellular anatomy of its nervous system is known. Scientists hope to apply their knowledge about the nematode's sense of touch to larger and more complex animals. Goodman grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts, and Bethesda, Maryland, writing scientific software in research lab...Experimental drug prevents vaginal simian HIV transmission in monkeys Science study says
... the movement of human cells and is well known for its antiviral properties. The new molecule shows more ...e monkeys' vaginas to prevent SHIV from continuing its multi-step infection process. It is not clear what PSC-RANTES concentration would be needed to blo...Time-lapse movies show brain cells move like a two-stroke engine
... that the explanation for how a neuron migrates to its destination in the brain lies in the way the cell ...cell perched on a rope, the glial fiber leading to its destination. Rather than gliding smoothly along the fiber, the neuron takes a "step." First it stret...