Notoriously “promiscuous” plants like oaks and dandelions have led some biologists to conclude plants cannot be divided into species the same way animals are.
That perception is wrong, say Indiana University Bloomington scientists in this week’s Nature. Their analysis of 882 plant and animal species and 1,347 inter-species crossings — the first large-scale comparison of species barriers in plants and animals — showed that plant species are just as easily categorized as animal
Scottish scientists are to form part of a European-wide “Network of Excellence” in research into a key area of genetic regulation, which links to an ever-growing list of diseases including certain types of cancer and neurodegenerative disorders.
Research teams led by Professor Angus Lamond in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee, Professor John Brown at the Scottish Crop Research Institute, Professor Jean Beggs at the University of Edinburgh and Dr Javier Cacer
Experts, lead by the University of Dundee, have discovered the gene which causes genetic skin conditions affecting millions of people.
Experts on genetic skin disorders at the University of Dundee, with collaborators in Dublin, Glasgow, Seattle and Copenhagen, have discovered the gene that causes dry, scaly skin and predisposes individuals to atopic dermatitis (eczema). Some of these individuals also develop a form of asthma that occurs in association with eczema. This work h
A group of scientists from Oregon have discovered that butterflies experience a great loss in body fat during metamorphosis. The details of their findings appear in the March issue of the Journal of Lipid Research, an American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology journal.
“The transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly is one on nature’s great mysteries,” says William E. Connor of the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. “Powerful chemical mediators
The newly identified human bocavirus was found in nearly 5 percent of pneumonia patients in rural Thailand, mostly in very young children. Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report their findings today at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases
“Our preliminary data suggests that human bocavirus may be associated with pneumonia in Thailand, especially among young children,” says Alicia Fry, one of the researchers on the study.
A team of cell biologists, toxicologists and molecular bioscientists at UC Davis has published a study connecting thimerosal with disruptions in antigen-presenting cells known as dendritic cells obtained from mice. The study provides the first evidence that dendritic cells show unprecedented sensitivity to thimerosal, resulting in fundamental changes in the immune system’s ability to respond to external factors. The study was published online today and will be available in the July print editi
It was once thought that only humans gestured to direct another person’s attention, but such “referential” gesturing was recently observed in wild chimpanzees.
John Mitani, University of Michigan anthropology professor, and colleague Simone Pika, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology at University of St. Andrews in Scotland, observed male chimps habitually using “directed scratches” to request grooming of specific areas on the body. The findings suggest that our closest living
Proteins, one of the basic components of living things, are among the most studied molecules in biochemistry. Understanding how proteins form or “fold” from sequenced strings of amino acids has long been one of the grand challenges of biology.
A common belief holds that the more proteins are confined by their environment, the more stable – or less likely to unfold – they become. Now, as reported on the cover of the March issue of Biophysical Journal, a team of chemical and biol
Many women with fertility problems could have a significantly better chance of having a baby if modern IVF techniques are combined with more traditional surgical interventions, according to a leading fertility specialist.
Mr TC Li, Honorary Professor at Sheffield Hallam University, says that surgical techniques should be used alongside IVF more often, especially for women who have repeatedly failed to conceive using IVF alone.
He explained in a lecture at Sheffield Hallam
Roughly 15 percent of the population carries a gene variant that may increase the risk of developing cancer. The cause of this increased risk has been unknown until now. But now a research team at Stockholm University in Sweden can explain why.
“The variant makes the cell motor sputter and mutate, so cancer can arise,” says Associate Professor Thomas Helleday, who leads the research team at the Department of Genetics, Microbiology, and Toxicology, Stockholm University.
Even thou
The glow emitted by a variety of sea coral helped Russian scientists harness the protein that generates the light to create a tiny fluorescent tag that responds to visible light. The two-color tag should help researchers follow individual proteins as they dart around inside living cells.
Under a microscope, the two-color tag—called Dendra because it is derived from the sea coral Dendronephthya—first shows up as a green glow, highlighting the otherwise invisible protein to which
Novel application of MRI leads to new tools for online dissection of preserved fishes
The same medical technology used to image brain tumors and torn knee ligaments is now taking the field of marine biology to a new dimension: anyone with Internet access will be able to look at fish as never before.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded researchers at the University of California at San Diego’s (UCSD) Keck Center for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Humans commonly use referential gestures that direct the attention of recipients to particular aspects of the environment. Because the recipient of a referential gesture must infer the signaler’s meaning, the use of these gestures has been linked with cognitive capacities such as the ability to recognize another individual’s mental state. Researchers have now found evidence that such referential gesturing is a natural part of chimpanzee behavior. The observations, which shed light on
Viruses are famous for evolving quickly, but the organisms they infect can’t be expected to sit idly by. There is now new evidence that animals in fact do an impressive job of keeping up in the ongoing evolutionary arms race between viruses and their hosts. Studying a special class of genes thought to have evolved in part as a defense system against viruses, researchers have found evidence that these genes are indeed among the fastest-evolving in the genome of the fruit fly, Drosophila.
Rutgers researchers have identified a gene – and the molecular function of its protein product – that provides an important clue to further understanding obesity and may point the way to new drugs to control fat metabolism.
The scientists found that the human protein known as lipin is a key fat-regulating enzyme. “Lipin activity may be an important pharmaceutical target for the control of body fat in humans, treating conditions that range from obesity to the loss of fat beneath
Infertility is a growing problem in our society. The number of embryo transfers performed in Europe (the last human-controlled step of the in-vitro fertilisation technique) increased by 8% between 1999 and 2003. Recent studies confirm this rising trend.
Despite the advances in IVF and other assisted reproduction technologies (ART), only 25% of embryo transfer attempts will lead to a successful pregnancy. In the remaining 75% of cases, the embryo fails to implant into the mo
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