Prefrontal cortex loses neurons during adolescence
...ex between adolescence and adulthood, with females losing about 13 percent more neurons in this brain region than males. This is the first study to demonstrate that the number of neurons in the prefrontal cortex decreases during adolescence. It is also the first to document sex differences in the number ...One Wwox isn't enough (to protect against cancer)
...tics at Ohio State. "These findings suggest that losing one copy of Wwox can predispose normal cells to become cancerous. This emphasizes the importance that Wwox may have in initiating the disease." Surprisingly, the research also links loss of the gene and a form of bone cancer called chondroid osteo...Agriculture, biology and conservation
...is challenge will need to be met while the U.S. is losing its agricultural land to urbanization. The research conducted by all three scientists is supported by federal investment in agencies including the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's competitive National Research In...Severe mental retardation gene mutation identified
...ardation as being mutated to the point of entirely losing function. "ZDHHC9 is a novel gene," explains Dr. Raymond. "This gene would not have been predicted to play a role in mental retardation based on the previous genetics work. It was found only because we were systematically looking at all the genes ...Fossil discovery marks earliest record of limbloss in ancient lizard
... happening 100 million years ago. We now know that losing limbs isn't a new thing and that lizards were doin...llustrating some portion of the aquatic process of losing limbs,'" said Caldwell. "There are lots of living lizards that love to lose their forelimbs and then...Why are there so many more species of insects? Because insects have been here longer
...e findings are also quite sobering. We are rapidly losing what it has taken nature hundreds of millions of years to construct, and only time can repair it. ...Picky-eater flies losing smell genes
..., the specialist fruit fly Drosophila sechellia is losing genes for smell and taste receptors 10 times faste...stroy their function. "Drosophila sechellia may be losing genes that helped its ancestors detect and assess plants it no longer uses," said McBride, whose res...Flexible electronics could find applications as sensors, artificial muscles
...nd, stretch and compress like an accordion without losing their ability to function. The detailed results of these findings were published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry paper, " Structural forms of single crystal semiconductor nanoribbons for high-performance stretchable electronics," which is avail...Laser goes tubing for faster body-fluid tests
...o molecules and the light scatters off, gaining or losing energy. A spectrograph translates the changed energies into spectra. Each chemical presents a Raman spectrum that scientists recognize. The Raman approach is a favorite for finding chemicals that overlap and mix in fluid, much like musical instrument...Ancient coral reef tells the history of Kenya's soil erosion
...nalysis of the corals revealed that Kenya has been losing valuable topsoil since the early 1900s, when British settlers began farming the region. "We found that soil erosion in Kenya increased dramatically after World War I, coinciding with British colonialism and a series of large-scale agricultural expe...Research group gets $7 million to pursue new antibiotic agents
...or alternatives to standard antibiotics, which are losing their effectiveness against common infectious agents. Health experts worldwide are concerned about the spread of antibiotic-resistant microbial infections and the shrinking arsenal of compounds that can effectively treat them. The five-year effort ...Arctic ice retreating more quickly than computer models project
... models point in the same direction: the Arctic is losing ice at an increasingly rapid pace and the impact of greenhouse gases is growing," says NCAR scientist Marika Holland, one of the studys co-authors. The authors compared model simulations of past climate with observations by satellites and other ins...Amphibians in losing race with environmental change
... face of these challenges, amphibians appear to be losing the battle of 5,743 known species of amphibians on Earth, 43 percent are in decline, 32 percent are threatened and 168 species are believed extinct. The impacts of changes are far more pervasive on amphibians than many other vertebrates, such as bir...Manchester to spearhead 8.3 million particle physics project
... much more radiation directly in the cancer, while losing much less energy in the surrounding healthy tissue. He continued: "NS-FFAGs could be used for many other purposes. They could be used to help generate electricity without significant greenhouse gas emissions while reducing the amount of long-lived ...Study shows response to financial loss parallels brain's processing of pain
...gest that the negative value people associate with losing money stems from an evolutionarily old system involved in fear and pain. This could provide some biological justification for the popular concept of "financial pain." Their study was published in the May 2 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience . "T...World's leading scientists announce creation of 'Encyclopedia of Life'
...odiversity is so incomplete that we are at risk of losing a great deal of it before it is ever discovered," Wilson called for a contemporary, dynamic portrait of the living Earth. "I wish that we will work together to help create the key tool that we need to inspire preservation of Earths biodiversity: th...DNA-damage test could aid drug development
...the normal way, dividing four or five times before losing their nucleus and becoming immature red blood cells. Shuga then studied the way these developing cells reacted to three toxic DNA- damaging agents whose effects had been studied by Samson's lab, and found the results correlated well with results fr...Sleepless for science: Flies show link between sleep, immune system in Stanford study
...y be a two-way street: sick flies can't sleep, and losing sleep makes them more susceptible to infection. "When flies get sick, they stop sleeping," said David Schneider, PhD, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology. "Disrupting sleep in turn disrupts the immune system, which makes them even mo...Climate change threatens wild relatives of key crops
...l. "Yet because of climate change, we could end up losing a significant amount of these critical genetic resources at precisely the time they are most needed to maintain agricultural production. Research that identifies crop wild relatives threatened by climate change is part of a broader CGIAR effort to ...New genetic data overturn long-held theory of limb development
... it, zebrafish went off and did something crazy by losing part of their fin. "So the innovation here is about a pattern of loss of gene activity [for the zebrafish] and not a pattern of acquisition [for tetrapods]," he said. Although this pattern of genes clearly helps to make hands and feet today in tetrap...