New technique may help detect fetal single gene disorders
...ry the same mutation were examined. Four distinct point mutations of the Beta-globin gene were examined. ...tudy indicates that fetal genetic traits involving point mutations can be detected from the analysis of circulatory fetal DNA in maternal plasma " The autho...Intervention cuts nerve damage, boosts life span
...ns, the researchers said. "We've identified a new point of intervention for extending life span by adjusting the amount of oxidative damage to nerve cells," said Stephen Helfand of the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington. Oxidative damage by free radicals is thought to be one of the prim...Novel sulfide-binding mechanism found in deep-sea tubeworms
...e, assembly, and function could provide a starting point for other studies into the incorporation of metal ions into biological functions. The structure also could prove a useful means of sulfide transport for chemical synthesis and detection systems. In addition, the hemoglobin itself could have medical...Singers (and parents) take note: Worst songbird rehearsals precede best debuts
...gs improved after intense morning rehearsal to the point where by the end of each new day, their singing was indeed better than the day before. The study yielded another counterintuitive result, namely, that birds which ultimately learn to sing better than others (by the end of the three month learning pe...Critical role in programmed cell death identified
...die and that the process that commits cells to the point of no return happens quickly. Conradt said it's the clearest confirmation yet that mitochondrial fragmentation is critical in killing cells. C. elegans worms are a convenient model system, Conradt explained, with a well documented cell lineage t...Stockpile bird flu vaccine now
...in of the virus responsible. "Normally there is no point stockpiling vaccine, because you don't know which flu will cause the next pandemic," Sthr says. "It could be H7 or H9." But the failure to halt the H5N1 bird flu outbreaks in Asia, and the growing number of human cases (see Table), is changing minds....Map of human genetic variation across populations may promise improved disease treatments
...or thousands of years. Genetic patterns may help point the way toward improved disease treatments. "Imagine that friends are giving you directions," Jasny suggested. "They might tell you that their house is part of a development that is three street lights south of the movie theater. Finding the street l...Brain region learns to anticipate risk, provides early warnings. suggests new study in Science
...ush the opposite button. "The idea is that at some point you have these competing tendencies to push the r...aised the odds that an individual would reach "the point of no return" and thus be unable to change gears in time to avoid pushing the wrong button. They the...Gene therapy converts dead bone graft to new, living tissue
...cognition is the key," says Schwarz. "It's at that point that the body actually begins changing the dead, foreign bone splint, into the body's own, whole, living bone." Such a transformation can occur because mammals use their skeletons for both support and as a kind of "calcium bank." If calcium, which i...University research ethics committees: A look from behind closed doors
...ect all the relevant perspectives. So, what is the point of requiring certain types of members to serve on these committees? The full paper is available by request....Scientists will discuss remarkable advances in whale research at the annual meeting of AAAS
...''When you surprise a regulatory agency with a new point of view, it shouldn't come as a shock that they ar...t the population was bigger and doing well at that point in the past. The parts that narrow down are points in the past where the population has shrunk. Thin......hat allow researchers to observe the deep-sea, now point to another unintended legacy of hunting whales the elimination of entire communities of deep-sea animals. Craig Smith, from the University of Hawaii, studies dead whales after they have sunk to the seafloor. Known as whale falls, their decomposing...Technological revolutions in sensors, robotics, and telecommunications allow new views of ocean
...experiments at depth. "It's going to be an era of point and click oceanography," says Bellingham. "Every time we've found a new way of working in the ocean we've made new discoveries, but we don't know what we're going to see," he adds. "Galileo didn't say, 'there must be sunspots and craters on the moo...New science sheds light on rebuilding fisheries
...n genetics, biology, and evolutionary science that point to new strategies for maintaining fisheries. As a ... by Ralph Larson of San Francisco State University point to an additional problem with current management. Larson's work shows that simply keeping enough sp...'Blinding' an insect's sense of smell may be the best repellent
...ident that this information may provide a starting point for future designs of pesticides and disease-contr...re very smart and have evolved a lot, but from the point of view of vulnerability, this makes them very vulnerable to strategies that would block their sense...Fox Chase Cancer Center scientists identify immune-system mutation
...athway. "Our new study identifies this defect as a point mutation in the zinc finger transcription factor Th-POK. We show that when the normal form of this factor is active in all developing lymphocytes, it can redirect would-be killer cells to the CD4 helper T cell lineage. This indicates that Th-POK is...It's not all genetic: Common epigenetic problem doubles cancer risk in mice
...'s lining had been identified as a likely starting point for tumors, Feinberg and his team tossed a cancer-causing genetic mutation into the mix. The IGF2 mice were crossed with mice carrying a mutation in a gene called APC, which had been tied to colon cancer by researchers studying families with excessiv...Tailing the cause of a rare heart disease
...ch. As a result, the heart becomes enlarged to the point where it can no longer pump blood efficiently. In earlier studies of patients with cardiomyopathy preceded by hearing loss, the Seidmans and their colleagues identified a region of chromosome 6 as the location of the culprit gene. In the latest study...New treatment for inflammatory bowel disease
...I, Fukushima, Japan, added that the team's results point to an important protective and potential therapeutic role for IFN-α/β. In an accompanying Commentary in the March issue of JCI, German researchers Stefan Wirtz and Markus F. Neurath noted that the results "suggest that strategies to modulate...Olfactory receptor cells may provide clues to psychiatric disease
... Rawson comments, "The deceased calcium responses point to a specific set of pathways that will allow us to narrow the target for identifying the defect of calcium regulation associated with bipolar disorder. Once identified, these pathways will provide new targets for drug development." The researcher...