Since late 2004, a large outbreak of chikungunya fever in the Indian Ocean has caused a public health crisis and alarmed international experts. A team of scientists led by Sylvain Brisse (of the Pasteur Institute) now reports the first molecular data on the viruses involved in the outbreak in the international open-access journal PLoS Medicine.
The outbreak affects the populations of Comoros, Mayotte, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, and Réunion. It is much larger than any previous out
The world’s smallest life forms could be the answer to one of today’s biggest problems: providing sustainable, renewable energy for the future. Using a variety of natural food sources, bacteria can be used to create electricity, produce alternative fuels like ethanol and even boost the output of existing oil wells, according to research being presented this week at the 106th General Meeting of the (ASM) American Society for Microbiology in Orlando, Florida.
“Microbial fuel cel
Newfound differences in turtle behavior pose a conservation challenge
Studying members of a large population of loggerhead sea turtles that nest on the Cape Verde islands off of West Africa, researchers have found an unexpected dichotomy in turtle behavior: While some turtles leave the nesting grounds to feed on bottom-dwelling sea life in shallow coastal waters, others leave Cape Verde to roam the much deeper open ocean along the African coast and exhibit a distinct feeding strategy.
In a study of the effects of aging on gene expression, researchers have found that variation in gene expression among individuals tends to increase with age. The findings, which impact our understanding of the molecular forces that govern age-related changes, are reported in the May 23rd issue of Current Biology by Mehmet Somel and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and the University of Cambridge.
One long-standing observation concerning the physiologic
One extra chromosome, one damaged chromosome, or pieces of chromosomes missing. Eight children with four different disorders with autistic features all had one such aberration in their genes. This is shown in a dissertation from the Sahlgrenska Academy at Göteborg University in Sweden.
The children in the study had Asperger’s syndrome, infantile autism, ADHD, and Rett’s syndrome. These are so-called autism spectrum disorders that all involve some form of contact disturbance. The
Is that salt marsh healthy? To answer this, Sea Grant biologists are cracking open common marsh snails and counting parasitic worms. Their claim: the more parasites, the healthier the marsh.
While the parasite hypothesis may conflict with conventional ideas about infectious disease and human health (malaria, for example, is caused by a parasite), the worms the scientists are investigating are not just any kind of parasite.
For one, these worms, known as trematodes, must
Recent discoveries at Mayo Clinic added two more cardiac genes to the list of potential links to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), increasing the possibility that genetic defects of the heart may cause up to 15 percent of SIDS cases. This research will be presented Friday at Heart Rhythm 2006, the 27th Annual Scientific Sessions of the Heart Rhythm Society in Boston.
In the two recent separate studies, researchers examined caveolin-3 (CAV3) and the cardiac ryanodine recept
Giant tubeworms found near hydrothermal vents more than a mile below the ocean surface do not bother to eat: lacking mouth and stomach, they stand rooted to one spot. For nourishment, they rely completely on symbiotic bacteria that live within their bodies to metabolize the sulphurous volcanic soup in which they both thrive.
But the microscopic larvae of these giants are born bacteria-free, with a complete digestive system. Juveniles swim, hunt, and eat before permanently settl
For the first time anywhere, researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have succeeded in observing and describing how damaged DNA is naturally identified.
The research sheds new light on understanding this molecular mechanism and is likely to aid in research on diseases involving DNA damage, including cancer.
An article regarding the work of the Hebrew University researchers appears in the current issue of the scientific journal Cell.
The researcher
As medical technology continues to advance, fertility procedures such as in-vitro fertilization and donor insemination are becoming more commonplace. However, a study in the May issue of The Journal of Pediatrics warns that, even after thorough screenings of sperm donors, genetic disorders can be transmitted to the conceived children.
Laurence Boxer, MD, and colleagues from the University of Michigan and the Severe Chronic Neutropenia International Registry investigated the cases of five
Patients will benefit from closer links between researchers, healthcare companies and doctors, thanks to £4.7m secured by a consortium of Yorkshire’s universities, health trusts and global companies. The money from the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) was confirmed today.
It’s the first time this wide range of organisations has been brought together – as the White Rose Health Innovation Partnership (WHIP) – to boost innovation within the NHS and to make sur
Researchers have known for years that damaged DNA can lead to human diseases such as cancer, but how damage occurs–and what causes it–has remained less clear.
Now, computational chemists at the University of Georgia have discovered for the first time that when a proton is knocked off one of the pairs of bases that make up DNA, a chain of damage begins that causes “lesions” in the DNA. These lesions, when replicated in the copying mechanisms of DNA, can lead to serious disorders such as c
New MBL study results may aid battle against insect-borne diseases
Scientists studying the widespread symbiotic bacteria Wolbachia have long been interested in its ability to proliferate. One way it does this is by hijacking sperm of its insect hosts and genetically tricking them to bear more infected females, the only sex that transmits the bacteria. Now, a new study from the MBL (Marine Biological Laboratory), published in the May 18 issue of PLoS Pathogens, demonstrates that
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and colleagues in the UK and USA today publish the longest and final chapter in what has been called The Book of Life — the text and study of our human genetic material. Published in Nature, the report of the sequence of human chromosome 1 is the final chromosome analysis from the Human Genome Project.
The sequence has been used to identify more than 1000 new genes and is expected to help researchers find novel diagnostics and treatments for
AIDS patients’ failure to clear HIV-1 might not be due to the inability of the human immune system to recognise the virus, as was previously thought. A study published today in the open access journal Medical Immunology shows that cultured immune system cells taken from healthy individuals recognise and respond to HIV-1 proteins. Cells taken from infected individuals, however, are much less responsive to the virus. These findings need to be reproduced in vivo, but they do offer new hope for a vacci
Proteins from a newly discovered family of genes, LRIG, function as a retardant for a protein that is important to tumor cells. It is probably this mechanism that lends the gene family its inhibiting effect on cancer tumors. This is shown in a dissertation by Jonas Nilsson at Umeå University in Sweden, to be publicly defended on May 24.
Jonas Nilsson and his associates have identified a new family of genes, the leucin-rich and immunoglobulin-like (LRIG) family. They found that the
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