Stolen gene allows insect virus to enter cells
...otential pesticides. But the viruses would require tweaking to be effective since they kill insects more slowly than chemical insecticides. Studying baculoviruses also yields insights into general viral behavior. The current study examined how baculoviruses took the evolutionary leap needed to become the nast...Reify Corporation's Visible Discovery(tm) technology showcased at ICSB conference
... at the amount of time and effort biologists spend tweaking image analysis toolboxes and developing custom algorithms to quantitate their assay results. Visible Discovery was developed to change all of that, and these posters give excellent demonstrations of how the same technology can be used to deliver prec...New brain hormone puts brakes on reproduction
...ammals, it would offer physicians another means of tweaking the reproductive system to fix problems ranging from infertility to precocious puberty, and also provide animal breeders with a new way to manipulate the productivity of livestock. The findings by Kriegsfeld and colleagues are reported this week in t...Einstein researchers identify genetic variants that lend clues to living longer
Many studies show that tweaking a single gene can extend life span in animal models. In a new study, Drs. Gil Atzmon and Nir Barzilai at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have found that people harbor alleles--alternative forms of a gene--that confer the...Sweet 'water taste' paradoxically predicts sweet taste inhibitors
...te receptor. "These findings will open doors for tweaking the sweet taste receptor and finding new sweeteners and inhibitors that can be used both by food industry and in medicine," states senior author Paul A.S. Breslin, PhD, a Monell geneticist. Lead author Veronica Galindo-Cuspinera, PhD, noted while wor...World's tiniest test tubes get teensiest corks
...heir target, a problem scientists are attacking by tweaking their chemistry to make it respond to the unique chemistry of cancer cells. The tubes also must be biologically benign. Martin says a method for making nanotubes he pioneered, template synthesis, allows manufacturers to use biodegradable material, su...In drug design, a loose fit may be best bet
...systems of hearing, balance, taste, and smell." By tweaking portions of the TRH molecule, the researchers developed six slightly edited versions, while retaining most of the properties of the natural hormone. Measuring the cellular response when hormone meets receptor, they found that the lower the affinity b...... found that they can increase bone mass in mice by tweaking the shape of a regulatory protein. HHMI investigator Gerald Crabtree and HHMI predoctoral fellow Monte Winslow report that slightly increasing the activity of a protein called NFATc1 causes massive bone accumulation, suggesting that NFATc1 or other p...MIT designs portable 'lab on a chip'
...stic device that could be carried into battle. By tweaking the design of a tiny pump, researchers affiliated with MIT's Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies have taken a major step towards making an existing miniature "lab on a chip" fully portable, so the tiny device can perform hundreds of chemical exper......m that he could affect the transporter activity by tweaking glutamate levels in the blood. When blood levels are low, the greater difference in concentrations causes the brain to release more glutamate into the bloodstream. He uses an enzyme called GOT that is normally present in blood to bind glutamate che...Human proteins evolving slowly thanks to multitasking genes
...ng to new research published in PLoS Biology. By tweaking these dual role regions, scientists could develop ...introns once resided. "This indicates that this tweaking of the dual role sections of genes is also what evolution does when introns are removed."...Researchers publish first marsupial genome sequence
... so much by inventing new kinds of proteins, as by tweaking the molecular controls that dictate when and where proteins are made. Second, many of the new DNA instructions appear to be derived from transposons, or "jumping genes," which are also located in areas once thought to be junk DNA. "Tran...Study shows lizard moms dress their children for success
..."orange" social environment triggers this hormonal tweaking of the eggs. "The females are responding to cues that predict something about the future environment, but we're not sure yet exactly what that is," Lancaster said. "Orange-throated neighbors may indicate a trend in the frequency of orange-throated...UN issues analysis of global investors' sustainable energy 'gold rush'
...scale industrial development, he added, not just a tweaking of the energy system. Growth is underpinned by a widening array of clean energy and climate policies at the federal, state and municipal levels. With respect to the energy efficiency sector, the investment trends are harder to identify but the im...Einstein researchers' prototype vaccine could provide improved protection against tuberculosis
...mmunology and molecular genetics. But we feel that tweaking the marginally useful BCG vaccine is the wrong strategy. So weve started with virulent M. tuberculosisthe organism that actually causes TB in humansand are knocking out certain genes to yield a live, attenuated M. tuberculosis strain that still produ...