Study identifies potential target for diabetes drugs
Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have traced runaway sugar production in the liver – an important feature of diabetes – to flaws in a two-protein combination at the heart of a molecular switch that responds to insulin.
The findings, to be posted by the journal Nature on its Web site on May 18, suggest that drugs designed to block the interaction of the two switch proteins might be effective in treating diabetes,
Trading through dealers on the London Stock Exchange could be obsolete in less than three years, according to new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
A study led by Dr Nir Vulkan of the Saïd Business School and Worcester College, University of Oxford, investigated where traders would trade if they have the choice of either a dealers’ market or a computerised system. “Our study suggests that in a just a few years’ time the traditional dealing market on the London St
An Oxford University study has found a gene which predisposes people to asthma and atopy, a form of hypersensitivity which causes allergies. This discovery, published on Sunday [18 May] online in nature genetics, has the potential to lead to better classification of asthma and to new treatments.
Asthma affects one child in seven in the UK and there are 155 million cases of the disease in the world today. Asthma and allergies run strongly in families and have a genetic basis.
Funded
The feasibility of using microwaves to extract minerals from rocks has been demonstrated by UK researchers.
This revolutionary technique could cut mining and mineral processing industry costs, and make it viable to process previously uneconomic mineral reserves. It could also help the environment by saving energy as 3 – 5% of the world’s entire electrical energy output is used for the size reduction of rocks and minerals.
The technique has been developed by engineers at the
Dutch chemist Ivan Buijnsters from the University of Nijmegen has successfully produced a diamond layer on a steel substrate. This opens up the possibility of wear-resistant tools. The secret to this technique is an adhesive layer between the steel and the diamond layer.
Buijnsters made diamond layers by allowing methane gas diluted in hydrogen gas to dissociate on a hot wire just above the substrate. The carbon atoms present in the methane dropped onto the substrate and formed a thin layer
Dutch PhD student Cathelijne Kloks has discovered that the so-called Cold Shock domain of the human YB-1 protein looks like a bucket with two extra ears. These ears lead the DNA to the binding site on the protein and keep it there.
Kloks investigated the structure and function of one of the three domains of the human protein YB-1. This protein plays an important role in the production of new proteins. The central domain, the so-called Cold Shock domain, ensures the binding of the protein to
Why do serious diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s mainly hit us in middle age or later? The links between aging and age-related diseases have proved elusive.
In studies of the powerfully informative roundworm, C. elegans, UCSF scientists have discovered that a class of molecules found in the worms and in people can both prolong life in the worm and prevent the harmful accumulation of abnormal proteins that cause a debilitating Huntington’s-like disease. The
A serendipitous discovery by a University of Colorado at Boulder-led team has shown for the first time that satellite signals from the Global Positioning System are a valuable new tool for studying seismic activity.
CU-Boulder Associate Professor Kristine Larson of aerospace engineering sciences said seismic waves from a 7.9 magnitude earthquake in Alaska’s Denali National Park in November 2002 were detected using Global Positioning Satellite, or GPS, receivers as far away as 2,350 mil
A progressive increase in the brightness of the planet Neptune suggests that, like Earth, the distant planet has seasons.
Observations of Neptune made during a six-year period with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope by a group of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) show that the planet is exhibiting a significant increase in brightness. The changes, observed mostly in the planet’s southern hemisphere, show a distinc
The gene for an enzyme that is key to natural disease resistance in plants has been discovered by biologists at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research (BTI) and at Cornell University. The researchers say that by enhancing the activity of the enzyme they might be able to boost natural disease resistance in crop plants without resorting to pesticides or the introduction of non-plant genes.
The research, reported in the latest (May 16) issue of the journal Cell , describes the discov
As scientists create molecular complexes to perform increasingly minute operations — such as molecular level switches or memory devices — it is critical that the association forces that hold the molecular components together be accurately understood.
But measurements of association constants are often not accurate, according to an article by Virginia Tech Ph.D. student Jason Jones and chemistry professor Harry W. Gibson, published in May 15, 2003 online issue of the Journal of the America
Those seeking yet another reason to eat their veggies, take note. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that a chemical produced when digesting such greens as broccoli and kale can stifle the growth of human prostate cancer cells.
The findings show that 3,3’-diindolylmethane (DIM), which is obtained by eating cruciferous vegetables in the Brassica genus, acts as a powerful anti-androgen that inhibits the proliferation of human prostate cancer cells in cultur
Work published in Journal of Medical Genetics indicates break may lead to an understanding of an important piece of the puzzle
Researchers at the University of Alberta have discovered a genetic flaw in a family suffering with schizophrenia that may help to explain an important biochemical process implicated in the onset of the disease.
Studying a British mother and daughter, the researchers discovered that both were found to have a “break” in a large gene on human chromosome 14,
Painless bone substitute could offer new era for surgeons
In an operating room in Carle Hospital in Urbana, Ill., on May 7, as scientists from the University of Illinois (UI) and Sandia National Laboratories watched, surgeon Michael Goldwasser fitted a highly unusual ceramic prosthetic device into the mouth of an elderly woman who had lost most of her teeth and along with it, much of the bone of her lower jaw.
The fitting operation was to determine whether the implant – crea
The apparent increase in marine biodiversity over the past 50 million to 100 million years is real and not just a false reading produced by the inconsistencies of the fossil record, says a team of paleontologists led by the University of Chicago’s David Jablonski. This finding, published in the May 16 issue of the journal Science, may help scientists place the future of global biodiversity in its proper context. “If you want to understand what’s going to come in the future you need
Dust from China’s Takla-Makan desert traveled more than 20,000 kilometers [12,000 miles] in about two weeks, crossing the Pacific Ocean, North America, and the Atlantic Ocean, before settling atop the French Alps. Chinese dust plumes had been known to reach North America and even Greenland, but had never before been reported in Europe.
An international team of scientists, using atmospheric computer models, studied dust that traveled the globe from February 25 to March 7, 1990. Their findin
Feedback
