Scientists have identified a key regulatory mechanism in the TGF-ß pathway. This discovery by Dr. Kai Lin and colleagues at UMASS Medical School and the University of Mississippi Medical Center helps further our understanding of how this important signaling pathway functions in a variety of cellular processes, including cancer formation and embryonic development.
The work is published in the August 1 issue of Genes & Development.
The TGF-ß pathway is an intracellular signaling pat
Scientists from Baylor College of Medicine (Texas, USA) and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (Cambridge, UK) have deciphered how neurons can synthesize a diverse range of proteins from a relatively limited number of genes – a discovery with important implications for understanding how complex neural circuitry is formed and maintained throughout our lives.
A long-standing question in neurobiology is how each of the tens of thousands of neurons that populate the mammalian brain are instruc
Excessive use of ‘reliever’ inhalers for asthma is linked to a significantly increased risk of dying from the disease, finds research in Thorax.
The researchers based their findings on over 96,000 patients diagnosed with asthma whose details had been entered anonymously onto the General Practice Research Database between 1994 and 1998.
They calculated the relative risk of dying from asthma – risk for someone with taking a particular medication, compared with someone not taking that
If you have had a bad nosebleed recently, think back over the last few days. Have you been taking Viagra? If so, it is worth mentioning it to your doctor, say surgeons writing in the August Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. Lucy Hicklin and colleagues at St George’s Hospital in London describe two case histories where very severe nosebleeds followed Viagra-enhanced sexual activity, and suggest possible reasons why the two could be connected.
A six-hour nosebleed
The
Fruit rinds provide new clues about crop domestication
Distinctly sculptured opaline phytoliths in soil and plant remains tell archaeologists which plants were present thousands of years ago. However, the production and purpose of these tiny glassy structures common in plant tissues is poorly understood. Dolores Piperno at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama and colleagues predict that a single genetic locus controls both lignin and phytolith production in sq
Without adequate cleaning regimes swimming pools can become a health hazard.
Now water experts and mathematicians are ‘pooling’ their expertise to anticipate the factors that lead to an unhealthy swimming environment.
The researchers are testing different water treatments using a unique pilot pool, donated by an advisory body, that simulates the chemical environment of a municipal swimming pool. Significantly this research technique could also be applied to other water recycling systems,
An unusual combination of oceanic and atmospheric events may be to blame for a mysterious and sudden die-off of numerous crabs, fish and invertebrate animals off the central Oregon coast during the past two weeks.
Oregon State University researchers who are studying near-shore ecosystems say extremely low oxygen levels – especially in the lower water column – appear to be the culprit.
“Though we are just beginning to amass the evidence, it appears that there has been a confluence o
Researchers studying global warming have often been confounded by the differences between observed increases in surface-level temperatures and unchanging low-atmosphere temperatures. Because of this discrepancy, some have argued that global warming is unproven, suggesting instead that true warming should show uniformly elevated temperatures from the surface through the atmosphere. Researchers have proposed a theory that changes in cloud cover could help explain the puzzling phenomenon, but none-until
Cardamom Mountains former home to Khmer Rouge
The Cambodian government announced today the creation of the Central Cardamoms Protected Forest, a 1,000,000-acre (402,000-hectare) area in southwestern Cambodia’s Central Cardamom Mountains. The Cardamoms are home to most of Cambodia’s large mammals and half of the country’s birds, reptiles and amphibians. Two wildlife sanctuaries border the area, bringing the total land under protection to 2.44 million acres (990,000 hecta
Male patients who suffer from obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) — the inability to breathe properly during sleep — produce lower levels of testosterone, resulting in decreased libido and sexual activity, according to researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Previous studies had indicated that male sleep apnea patients had reported decreased libidos but the studies were unable to establish a scientific link. The current study, reported in the July issue of The Journal of Clinical End
Efforts by British campaigners to halt the unsustainable use of peat in horticulture have received international acclaim, just a few days after Environment Minister Michael Meacher reaffirmed the UK Government`s commitment to reducing peat use by 90% before 2010.
At a meeting of the International Mire Conservation Group (IMCG) in France on 21st July, the UK was commended for the impact of its campaign to persuade the public, industry and government to stop using peat. The IMCG applauded the
Researchers at the University of Ulster and Belfast City Hospital are set to launch a groundbreaking study that could offer a new insight into the prevention of prostate cancer.
The study will focus on a significant link between low levels of serious prostate cancer and the presence of soy products in the diet.
Professor Ian Rowland, from the University of Ulster said: “The incidence and mortality rate of certain cancers such as colorectal and prostate cancers, is much higher in W
You are less likely to have allergies if:
you have older siblings (especially brothers);
you rarely washed your face and hands as a child;
you have had gastric infections with microorganisms that originated in faeces;
you were brought up on a farm with animals;
you keep a dog;
the dust in your home is contaminated with bacteria;
or you lived in Communist country rather than western Europe. You are more like to be allergic if
The Department of Nutrition and Bromatology of the Faculty of Pharmacy of Gasteiz, University of the Basque Country, is studying the action mechanism of fluoxetine in genetically fattened rats (Zucker fa/fa). Due to fluoxetine, those rats eat 50 % less. Therefore, the bodies put on less weight and the size of different fat tissues is reduced.
Antidepressants of the type of fluoxetine reduce appetite. More exactly, fluoxetine affects on neuropeptides that regulate appetite. Hence, it is believed
Optical properties could prove useful in biomedical, nanoelectronic applications
Add fluorescence to the growing list of unique physical properties associated with carbon nanotubes — the ultrasmall, ultrastrong wunderkind of the fullerene family of carbon molecules.
In research detailed in the current issue of Science magazine, a team of Rice University chemists led by fullerene discoverer and Nobel laureate Richard Smalley describes the first observations of fluorescence
A team of researchers from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has discovered a way to use adult bone marrow stem cells to form new blood vessels in the eye or to deliver chemicals that will prevent the abnormal formation of new vessels.
This technique, which involves injecting the stem cells into the eye, could potentially be used to stimulate vessel growth and address inherited degenerations of the retina in the first instance, and in the second, to treat ocular diseases resulting from
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