Tired of resigning yourself to wearing uncomfortable footwear or hunting for hours in search of the right shoes, but think a made-to-order pair will be prohibitively expensive? Think again. A European project has come up with a solution.
Around 300 people across Europe are currently wearing footwear that better fits their feet thanks to trials carried out by the ERGOSHOE project last year. Many more are likely to do the same as the European Commission-funded initiative brings it
A new study published in the online open-access journal PLoS Biology explores a longstanding paradox in the regulation of a key tumor suppressor protein called p53. Min Hu, Yigong Shi, and their colleagues applied structural and mutational approaches to shed light on the regulation of a crucial regulatory pathway. Mutations that disable p53, which also plays a crucial role in regulating cell growth, are the most common mutations in many human cancers.
When cell damage occurs, p
Every year, heart disease claims an estimated 7 million lives, according to the World Health Organization. Scientists have struggled to pinpoint the precise genes behind this complex disease. Now, however, they have a new research ally: the designer rat.
In a four-year study published in the January 15 advance online publication of Nature Genetics, researchers at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) and the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) systematically bred and studie
A research team at UT Southwestern Medical Center has discovered a cell-signaling mechanism instrumental in the most common brain cancer in adults.
The study, published in today’s issue of the journal Cancer Research, opens an avenue to develop therapeutic drugs to target the epidermal growth factor receptor genes that play a major role in the development of deadly brain tumors, researchers said.
The median survival of patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM
A team of scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science, led by Prof. Michal Schwartz of the Neurobiology Department, has come up with new findings that may have implications in delaying and slowing down cognitive deterioration in old age. The basis for these developments is Schwartz’s team’s observations, published today in the February issue of Nature Neuroscience, that immune cells contribute to maintaining the brain’s ability to maintain cognitive ability and cell renewal throughout life.
In their latest finding on the brain’s role in controlling appetite and weight, researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have shown that reducing levels of fatty acids in the hypothalamus causes rats to overeat and become obese. Their results suggest that restoring fatty-acid levels in the brain may be a promising way to treat obesity. The study, published in the January 15th on-line edition of Nature Neuroscience, was led by Dr. Luciano Rossetti, director of the Diabetes Resea
A component of many proteins has been found to constitute one of the most powerful and resilient molecular “springs” in nature, researchers have discovered. The engineers and biologists from Duke University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute say their discovery could lead to a new understanding of mechanical processes within the living cell. The discovery also could provide potent nanoscale “shock absorbers” or “gate-opening springs” in tiny nanomachines.
The team’s fin
Research in monkeys suggests that the natural plant estrogens found in soy do not increase markers of breast cancer risk in postmenopausal women. In fact, they may provide a protective effect in some women. The research is reported today in Cancer Research.
“Even at high doses, we found no evidence that the estrogen-like compounds in soy, called isoflavones, stimulate cell growth or other markers for cancer risk in breast tissue,” said Charles E. Wood, D.V.M., Ph.D., lead rese
Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center say they have jumped a significant hurdle in the use of RNA interference (RNAi), believed by many to be the ultimate tool to both decode the function of individual genes in the human genome and to treat disease.
Reporting in the journal Genes and Development, investigators have developed a simple way to use the RNAi approach to silence a selected gene in a specific tissue in a mouse to determine the function o
As published in the January 15th issue of G&D, Dr. Joel Richter’s laboratory at UMASS Medical School has identified a critical role for the RINGO/Spy protein in the control of cytoplasmic polyadenylation. CPEB is a highly conserved, sequence-specific RNA-binding protein that modulates polyadenylation, and thereby mRNA translation. Dr. Richter and his graduate student, Kiran Padmanabhan, now show that CPEB phosphorylation (and subsequent activation) is regulated by RINGO/Spy in Xenopus oocytes
St. Jude study finds that more than 85 percent of adults with X-linked agammaglobulinemia work full time or are full-time students
Individuals who have a rare genetic immune system disorder that prevents them from making antibodies nevertheless appear to be moderately healthy and lead productive lives, according to results of a study by investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. A report on this study appears in the current online edition of Clinical Immunolog
Researchers at Erasmus Medical Center have demonstrated systemic spread of avian influenza virus in cats infected by respiratory, digestive, and cat-to-cat contact. The paper by Rimmelzwaan et al., “Influenza A virus (H5N1) infection in cats causes systemic disease with potential novel routes of virus spread within and between hosts,” appears in the January issue of The American Journal of Pathology and is accompanied by a commentary.
Avian influenza (H5N1) is of great concern because
With the exception of lasers and free-electron lasers, there hasn’t been another fundamental way to produce coherent light for close to 50 years.
But a group of researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found a new source of coherent optical radiation that is distinct from lasers and free-electron lasers.
Applications for this research are numerous, but the most immediate result may be a new diagnostic tool t
Results suggest that coffee may impair peak heart function
In healthy volunteers, the equivalent of two cups of coffee reduced the body’s ability to boost blood flow to the heart muscle in response to exercise, and the effect was stronger when the participants were in a chamber simulating high altitude, according to a new study in the Jan. 17, 2006, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
“Whenever we do a physical exercise, myocardial blood flow
Study is first to associate calorie restriction with delayed primary aging in humans
The hearts of people who follow a low-calorie, yet nutritionally balanced, diet resemble those of younger people when examined by sophisticated ultrasound function tests, and they tend to have more desirable levels of some markers of inflammation and fibrosis, according to a new study in the Jan. 17, 2006, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
“Eating less, if it i
Although there were fewer deaths worldwide in 2005 due to earthquakes, more than 89,353 casualties were reported, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and confirmed by the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Nearly all of the fatalities for the year, more than 87,000, occurred when a magnitude 7.6 hit Pakistan on Oct. 8.
In 2004, the third deadliest earthquake year on record, over 283,000 perished in the Dec. 26 magnitude 9.0 Sumatra quake a
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