Researchers have identified a new and unusual tumor suppressor gene that may be important in cancers of the lung and head and neck. The study shows that restoring the inactivated gene can slow the growth of tumor cells.
The gene, known as TCF21, is silenced in tumor cells through a chemical change known as DNA methylation, a process that is potentially reversible.
The findings might therefore lead to new strategies for the treatment and early detection of lung cancer,
Researchers urge doctors to perform sleep studies on children before, during treatment
Growth hormone helps hundreds of children with a rare disorder that causes them to gorge on food, but for some, starting treatment can worsen a dangerous nighttime breathing problem, University of Florida researchers have found.
Sleep apnea disrupts breathing during sleep and is common among morbidly obese children, including those with Prader-Willi syndrome, a disease that compel
International scientific team reacts to misinterpretation of their research results and provides the correct perspective
In a recent study (Nature, 12 January 2006), scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, Utrecht University, Netherlands, and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development for Northern Ireland, UK, revealed that plants produce the greenhouse gas methane. First estimates indicated that this could account for a significant proportion of meth
The Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network of 26 research sites in which more than 1,800 scientists and students collaborate through funding by the National Science Foundation, turned 25 years old in 2005. During that quarter century, researchers have made important strides in understanding how ecosystems change over time.
But a new report, co-authored by an anthropologist at the University of Georgia, says that much more attention should be paid at the study sites and elsew
A new mechanism for regulating brain function
Non-coding regions of the genome – those that don’t code for proteins – are now known to include important elements that regulate gene activity. Among those elements are microRNAs, tiny, recently discovered RNA molecules that suppress gene expression.
Increasing evidence indicates a role for microRNAs in the developing nervous system, and researchers from Children’s Hospital Boston now demonstrate that one microRNA
Research may influence future development of semiconductors, nanocomposites
Physicists at Boston College have for the first time shown that carbon nanotubes can be stretched at high temperature to nearly four times their original length, a finding that could have implications for future semiconductor design as well as in the development of new nanocomposites.
Single-walled carbon nanotubes are tiny cylinders thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair
Researchers have labored for decades to understand blindness-inducing neurodegenerative diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and retinitis pigmentosa (RP).
It has been a painstaking scientific journey as AMD and RP each belong to a complex family of disorders, in which every disorder has many forms and each form is encoded with a distinct genetic recipe. Even AMD, a major cause of vision loss in people over 60, is actually a collection of more than 50 diseases
Once-daily antiretroviral combination more effective and better tolerated than traditional drug ’cocktail’
An international team of AIDS researchers at Johns Hopkins and other institutions has found that a once-daily combination of three antiretroviral drugs works better as an initial treatment for HIV infection than another three-drug combination long considered the gold standard.
Reporting in the Jan. 19 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, the res
An MIT researcher’s atom-by-atom simulation of cracks forming and spreading may help explain how materials fail in nanoscale devices, airplanes and even in the Earth itself during a quake. This work, which could impact a wide range of scientific and engineering disciplines, appears in the Jan. 19 issue of Nature.
“Classical theories of crack dynamics are only valid in a small range of material behavior,” said author Markus J. Buehler, principal investigator in the Atomistic Mech
Mediating molecule provides new research target for diabetes, obesity
Constant darkness throws a molecular switch in mammals that shifts the body’s fuel consumption from glucose to fat and induces a state of torpor in mice, a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston reports in the Jan. 19 edition of Nature.
While their findings could provide new insight into mammalian hibernation, researchers note that the pivotal metabolic
National survey identifies the general public as the primary source of abuse
Nearly half of American workers are victims of workplace aggression, with customers, clients or patients the most likely source of attacks, according to a new comprehensive national survey.
“The stereotypical belief that large numbers of employees are ’going postal’ is a bit of a myth,” says Aaron Schat, assistant professor at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University. “47 m
Engineers have developed a method for “precooling” small office buildings and reducing energy consumption during times of peak demand, promising not only to save money but also to help prevent power failures during hot summer days.
The method has been shown to reduce the cooling-related demand for electricity in small office buildings by 30 percent during hours of peak power consumption in California’s sweltering summer climate. Small office buildings represent the majority of
Everyone knows what happens to water when it boils—everyone, that is, except computers. Modeling the transformation process of matter moving from one phase to another, such as from liquid to gas, has been all but impossible near the critical point. This is due to the increasingly complex way molecules behave as they approach the change from one phase to another. Researchers at the University of Rochester, however, have now created a mathematical model that will allow scientists to simulate and
Anticipating our own touch – for example in tickling oneself – reduces its impact, says Queen’s psychologist Dr. Randy Flanagan, a member of the university’s Centre for Neuroscience Studies. This is evidence of an important human adaptation that helps us interact with objects in our environment.
An expert in eye/hand movement, Dr. Flanagan is part of an international team exploring sensory attenuation – the way that we filter out or “cancel” unnecessary information from
Big manufacturing jobs, especially those in the defense industry that involve management of extensive supply chains, often require resources and expertise that many believe are beyond the capacity of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Recent work by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and colleagues at Pittsburgh’s Doyle Center for Manufacturing Technology, however, demonstrates the capabilities of simulation and visualization technologies for
Hot competition for sex threatens biodiversity in world’s richest regions
In biodiversity hot spots like tropical rainforests, a dearth of pollinators could be putting many species at risk of extinction, according to a new study that includes three University of Pittsburgh researchers. The finding is raising concerns that more may need to be done to protect the Earth’s most biologically rich areas.
The study, titled “Pollination Decays in Biodiversity Hotspots,” appe
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