Family of life-extending genes discovered
...ule in red wine that extends the lifespan of every organism so far tested. "We think these new Sir2 genes are as important as any longevity genes discovered so far," said molecular biologist David Sinclair, director of the Paul F. Glenn Laboratories for Aging Research at Harvard Medical School and co-author o...Studies reveal how plague disables immune system, and how to exploit the process to make a vaccine
...search (GLRCE). "It's the most virulent bacterial organism known to mankind. But we now know a little more about how it exercises those powers and we think we can use that knowledge to prepare a preemptive strike." Historically, the terms "plague" or "Black Death" have referred to the bubonic plague, caused...Immune system's distress signal tells bacteria when to strike back
...of Science , the researchers show how this lethal organism detects interferon-gamma, a chemical messenger the immune system uses to coordinate its efforts to get rid of bacteria. When these bacteria intercept this message, they recognize it as a threat, assess their own numbers and, if they have sufficient ...Evolution of morphological integration
... individuals within a population. This requires an organism to survive stress and reproduce at least once; thu...ess-induced variation has to be accommodated by an organism without much reduction in its functionality. How is such accommodation accomplished? In an article ...Grasshopper love songs give insight into sensory tuning
...ded the researchers. "This result suggests that an organism may seek to distribute its sensory resources according to the behavioral relevance of the natural important stimuli, rather than according to purely statistical principles. "For instance, if a few important stimuli within the natural environment need...Tiny roundworm's telomeres help scientists to tease apart different types of aging
...t now we know that C. elegans is the perfect model organism to study telomere biology since their regulation is similar to human telomeres," says first author Marcela Raices, a post-doctoral researcher in Karlseder's lab. Many cells in our body keep dividing throughout life (e.g., those that line our digesti...Nitrogen in the air feeds the oceans
...Global Biogeochemical Cycles,focused on the marine organism Trichodesmium, the best-known"fixer" of atmospheric nitrogen. Though it is only one of many nitrogen fixers in the ocean,Trichodesmium's contribution alone is nearly 10 times greater thanprevious estimates of oceanic N2 fixation worldwide. "What make...NYU biologists map out early stages of embryo formation
... whose genome was completely sequenced and a model organism to study how embryos develop. With the complete genome sequence of C. elegans, the researchers sought to comprehend how the parts encoded by the genome are used to build complex dynamical biological systems--in this case, an engineering diagram for ...Warming most evident at high latitudes, but greatest impact will be in tropics
...vidence suggests that the range of temperatures an organism experiences dictates its tolerance to changing climate, or defines the temperature envelope in which it can live." Tewksbury will present the findings Friday at the Ecological Society of America's annual meeting in Montreal. Collaborators include Cu...Ships bring alien jellyfish invaders to our shores
... data on currents, geography and the biology of an organism to help separate natural dispersal from that which happens through shipping and trad. It's a pretty sophisticated model and we plan to make it available as a research tool on the World Wide Web." Discovery: new species of moon jellyfish The resear...Researchers discover new route to hemoglobin synthesis
...ly manipulable fish constitutes an excellent model organism for studying the regulation of heme formation. In the current study, the researchers traced the hemoglobin defect to the gene for an enzyme known as glutaredoxin 5 (grx5). But the researchers found early on that the enzyme was not directly connected ...Still shellfish after 425 million years: Clam-like creature preserved perfectly in ancient fossil
...London, who reveals the structure of the clam-like organism using a 3D colour computer model in this week's Nature. Showing the internal structure of the brachiopod as well as the stalk and rootlets that kept it tethered in place, the model gives a unique insight into the workings of the ancient shellfish. ...Simple sea sponge helps scientists understand tissue rejection
... that of humans but much simpler. It's also a good organism for laboratory research, since its cells and cell adhesion molecules can be isolated with simple, fast, and non-disruptive methods and studied, and because its fingerlike structures make grafting experiments relatively straightforward. In experiments...Bacteria recognize antimicrobials, respond with counter-defenses
...the food chain. Learning how this sometimes deadly organism fights back against the immune system may lead to treatments that get around bacterial resistance. Work in this area may also suggest ways other disease-causing, Gram-negative bacteria maintain a stronghold in the midst of the body's attempts to get ...Microbe has huge role in ocean life, carbon cycle
...se pairs the smallest ever found in a free living organism and a number that's literally tiny compared to som... has almost no wasted DNA," Giovannoni said. "This organism is extremely small and efficient. Every genetic part serves a purpose, more so than any other genom...Bacteria are key to 'green' plastics, drugs
...nett and San said they will continue to refine the organism to produce higher yields and fewer byproducts....A step closer to a malaria vaccine
...ool of Pharmacy. "The parasite is a highly complex organism that develops through different life-cycle stages. This has allowed it to evade the immune system and makes creating a comprehensive vaccine a difficult task." Malaria vaccines to date have not been entirely effective, only able to temporarily suppre...EBI and Ghent University launch PRIDE: An open source database of protein identifications
...s produced by a particular type of cell, tissue or organism under certain conditions. While an individual's genome remains the same from one moment to the next, proteomes are extremely dynamic. For example, the set of proteins produced by your liver will change in response to eating a meal, and a healthy live...Hebrew U. / Johns Hopkins study provides clues to dealing with human disease
... cell structure. In both cases, the ability of the organism to grow and to reproduce is severely impaired. The researchers hope that through further laboratory experimentation with the worm they will be able to better understand the functions of lamin-based complexes, and why mutations in these proteins cause...Delaware scientists make significant advance in study of small RNAs
.... Determining the sequence of the small RNAs of an organism is critical for understanding their overall impact and individual biological roles, Meyers said. Although several thousand small RNAs have been identified from diverse plant and animal systems, these sequences were identified using older technologi...