Visualizing the end of the human genome
..., you need to bind some multiple of six." To understand how human POT1 recognized and bound to the telomere, the researchers crystallized a form of POT1 bound to the critical ten-nucleotide segment of DNA. They then used x-ray diffraction to reveal the structure of the complex. Unexpectedly, they found th...Studies in Royal Society journals include stress in birds and depletion of medieval fish stocks
...ogists. This model is already helping us to better understand sensory systems, which is invaluable in our wider project, the construction of a whiskered robot that can navigate and explore like a real rat. Contact: Dr Ben Mitchinson, Adaptive Behaviour Research Group, University of Sheffield, SHEFFIELD, S10 2TP...Scientists generate human islet precursor cells in culture
...goals for long-term diabetes research is to better understand the beta cell and how it regenerates. These findings may eventually have implications for diabetes treatments, including islet transplantation. Islet transplantation involves the infusion of islets derived from donor pancreata into a person with co...Columbia researchers identify drug as therapeutic candidate for spinal muscular atrophy
..., said that the next steps would be experiments to understand its mechanism of action, to deliver the drug to the spinal cord, and toxicity testing of related drug molecules. A clinical trial for its effectiveness in treating SMA could follow. It should be noted that the researchers found that ibuprofen and oth...MBL scientists embark on international effort to uncover microbial diversity in world's oceans
...and discovering new organisms, the project aims to understand the evolutionary and ecological processes by which marine microbial diversity has been created and is maintained. The project marks the first global effort to acquire information about diversity and distribution of single-celled organisms and associ...Differences in gene usage dramatically change bacteria's 'lifestyles'
...age are harder to look for, but we're not going to understand these organisms fully unless we take into account this other dimension," says senior investigator Eduardo Groisman, Ph.D., professor of molecular microbiology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. The study appears the week of Nov. 29 in ...University of Texas at Austin researchers identify drug-tolerance mechanism in flies
...ese regulatory questions," Atkinson said. "Once we understand what happens in flies we can more easily ask if the same thing happens in mammals."...Study in Royal Society journal on possible genetic factors in social responsiblity
...ry social being, from insects to humans, we hardly understand how animals choose between these tactics. In this study we manipulated the esuriency of house sparrows and observed whether they adjust their feeding strategy according to their state. We found that hungry birds scrounged (exploited their flockmates'...A global view of gene expression in the aging kidney
...al picture first and then use it as a framework to understand how the individual components of the process fit together." To get a broad view of gene expression in the developing nematode, Kim's lab turned to DNA microarray technology. In a new study, Kim and colleagues apply this same approach to the decidedly...New method to measure ancient land elevation developed by Field Museum scientist
...rm climate change. "The new method will help us to understand the rate at which some of the Earth's most important mountains have uplifted," she added. "It will also show how the process of mountain building influenced climatic patterns as well as plant and animal evolution." The new method of paleoelevatio...NIH makes award to UNC for Genome Fingerprint Scanning program
...st researchers who are studying proteins to better understand complex diseases. The most common approach compares proteins expressed in diseased versus normal tissues to determine proteins whose expression levels or forms are significantly changed, indicating a potential role in the disease. One example is a ...Researchers reconstruct parts of the genome of a common mammalian ancestor
...e role in DNA's function. "Someday we are going to understand what some of these other noncoding elements in the middle of introns and upstream from genes are doing," Haussler said. "But most of this is terra incognita today." Haussler said he is confident that significant medical benefits will a...International Polar Year preparations
...m around the world will conduct research to better understand all aspects of the Earth's polar regions. Twenty-six speakers presented possible topics for IPY research and collaborations were discussed that involve all facets of UAF. From political science and linguistics to Arctic biology and geophysics, there ...NJIT physicists expect new super lens to reveal first light by early 2006
...on's multi-agency space weather program, to better understand the interaction between magnetic fields and the flows of materials on the sun's surface. The new telescope will also allow researchers to study the dynamics of the sun's chromosphere. The chromosphere is the first layer of atmosphere above the sun...Computer analysis shows scientists could reconstruct the genome of the mammalian common ancestor
...icult.) But that's not the point. The point is to understand the evolution of humans and other mammals at the m...ut our origins, a kind of DNA-based archaeology to understand how we came to be," said Haussler, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator and directo...Findings show how toxic proteins rob Alzheimer's patients of memory
...d for an unexpected long time. Our next step is to understand why ADDLed synapses have trouble staying connected and storing memories." ADDLS are small, soluble aggregated proteins. The clinical data strongly support a recent theory in which ADDLs accumulate at the beginning of Alzheimer's disease and bl...Science and medicine - bridging the gap
... "We envision a new cadre of Ph.D. researchers who understand pathophysiology and know the language and processes of medicine," said HHMI President Thomas R. Cech. "Our goal is to increase the pool of people who are doing medically oriented research." On December 1, 2004, the Institute will open a competition ...New study discovers why 'persister' cells never say die
... biofilm. For years, scientists have struggled to understand why a certain type of infection known as biofilms are often resistant to antibiotics. Biofilms contain cells that are identical to the infecting cells, but are not corrupted and destroyed by antibiotics. Lewis discovered these "persister" cells, ...Read your shampoo's label: Study finds common ingredient stunts developing neurons of rats
...heir current study was lethal to these cells. To understand what effect chronic exposure would have on immatur...l of Medicine, plan additional research to further understand the molecular mechanisms underlying MIT's neurotoxic effect on cells, as well as studies involving w......ictor of function, and could speed up the quest to understand whole genomes, in humans and other mammals, by decades. The authors have made their mouse dataset openly accessible online to the research community. Tim Hughes and colleagues from the University of Toronto, Canada, looked at the mouse genome using ...