Brown University biologists have solved the structure of a critical piece of synapse-associated protein 97 (SAP97) found in abundance in the heart and head, where it is believed to play a role in everything from cardiac contractions to memory creation. Results are published in The Journal of Biological Chemistry.
Dale Mierke, associate professor of medical science at Brown, said that knowing how a piece of SAP97 is built is an important step. Now that part of the protein’s structure is
Using high-speed collisions between gold atoms, scientists think they have re-created one of the most mysterious forms of matter in the universe — quark-gluon plasma. This form of matter was present during the first microsecond of the Big Bang and may still exist at the cores of dense, distant stars.
UC Davis physics professor Daniel Cebra is one of 543 collaborators on the research. His main role was building the electronic listening devices that collect information about the
A defect in the mechanics of motors that build tiny cellular hairs is the basis of a serious genetic disorder, according to researchers at UC Davis and Simon Fraser University, Canada. Bardet-Biedl syndrome (BBS), affecting about one in 100,000 births, includes progressive blindness, extra or fused fingers and toes, kidney disease and learning difficulties, among other problems.
Products of genes linked to the syndrome coordinate mobile, cargo-carrying motor proteins within the cilia, ti
From birth until death, our cells migrate: nerve cells make their vital connections, embryonic cells move to the proper places to form organs, immune cells zero in to destroy pathogenic organisms, and cancer cells metastasize, spreading deadly disease through the body. Scientists studying these migrations didn’t know how cells determined where to go. Until now.
A Burnham Institute study has identified a fragment of a protein that senses chemicals that induce a cell to move in
A medication used to ease symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, also is helpful in treating people with treatment-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), according to a pilot study at Yale School of Medicine.
Although the study included only 13 patients, the preliminary results are promising for persons who have found no relief using other medications and cognitive behavioral therapy, said the first author, Vladimir Coric, M.D., assistan
A new study from the University of Alberta reveals that people with HIV in developing countries do just as well on antiretroviral therapy (ART) programs as do people with HIV on ART programs in developed countries. It also shows that people with HIV who are given free ART drugs will do “significantly” better at fighting the disease compared to those who must pay for the drugs.
“ART programs are complex therapeutic regimens that require patients to take a minimum of three pills a
Physicists at the University of Pennsylvania have overcome a major hurdle in the race to create nanotube-based electronics. In an article in the August issue of the journal Nature Materials, available online now, the researchers describe their method of using nanotubes tiny tubes entirely composed of carbon atoms — to create a functional electronic circuit. Their method creates circuits by dipping semiconductor chips into liquid suspensions of carbon nanotubes, rather than growing the nanotu
Being seasick is not a problem for scientists on a major expedition now under way in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. That’s because most of the researchers investigating the eerie Lost City hydrothermal vent field are working “aboard” a landlocked science command center in Seattle.
Only four scientists are with University of Rhode Island oceanographer Bob Ballard aboard the Ronald H. Brown, a research vessel operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrat
Fears that chemical byproducts resulting from purifying drinking water with chlorine boost the chances that pregnant women will miscarry were not supported by the results of a major new study. If such threats exist at all, which is uncertain, they likely are modest, it concludes.
The national study, directed by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill scientists, contrasts with earlier, less detailed work done in Northern California and published in 1998. That research suggested an ass
A University of Cincinnati (UC) study provides new evidence that drinking large amounts of beverages containing fructose adds body fat, and might explain why sweetening with fructose could be even worse than using other sweeteners.
Researchers allowed mice to freely consume either water, fructose sweetened water or soft drinks. They found increased body fat in the mice that drank the fructose-sweetened water and soft drinks–despite that fact that these animals decreased the a
The natural ability of viruses to infect and destroy cells is being used by scientists to kill cancerous tumours, according to an article in the August 2005 issue of Microbiology Today, the quarterly magazine of the Society for General Microbiology.
Professor Moira Brown of Southern General Hospital in Glasgow explains how viruses that cause common diseases, such as cold sores and ‘flu, have been modified so that they are no longer harmful, but can target and kill only cancerous cells
We look at a Gothic cathedral in a different way than we gaze at a standard apartment block, and when we scrutinize paintings, our gaze slides along differently than when we look at a datasheet with numerals to be memorized. And how are training materials – manuals, video films and websites – perceived, when as much information should be gained from a glance? How should they be made up to work most effectively? Specialists of the Institute of Cognitive Neurology (Modern University for the Humanitie
About one hundred years ago, S. Arrhenius brought forward a hypothesis that the atmospheric temperature of at the surface of the Earth was increasing under the influence of the glasshouse effect created by carbonic acid gas. Since that time, the researchers, when simulating the planet climate, have mainly focused on O2 and it is water vapour that comprises the largest mass of all greenhouse gases. Thanks to water vapour and clouds, the average temperature at the surface of the planet is about 1
The situation regarding titanium is paradoxical. On the one hand, titanium is found in abundance in the natural environment: in terms of natural occurrence in the earth’s crust, the element is the third among all metals, directly following iron and aluminium. In industry, particularly in metallurgy it is used very rarely, about one hundred times less than aluminium. This happens in spite of the outstanding properties of titanium: it is lightweight, fast, heatproof and chemically stable. But it
The level of current funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to the University of Southampton has topped the critical £100 million mark for the first time.
Southampton currently has a grant income of £102,670,666 in EPSRC research funding across a total of 165 individual grants. The Russell Group University stands third in the Council’s portfolio of funded organisations ahead of Oxford University, and behind Cambridge and Imperial which take fir
New research into muscle contraction will give scientists a better understanding of bladder problems and pain during childbirth.
Professor Susan Wray, who heads the UK’s top rated Department of Physiology, and Dr Ted Burdyga, are studying muscles in the wall of the ureter, which connects the kidney to the bladder, to understand how muscles respond to signals in the body telling them to contract or relax. Their research, supported by the Medical Research Council, is published in
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