New research by the University of Warwick’s Warwick Medical School shows that the biggest health threat to fat and obese people isn’t the fat itself but the fact that the fat fuels a killer inflammation response in people.
The research published in the International Journal of Obesity on Tuesday 7th March shows that inflammation is a crucial and dangerous step in the development of obesity.
Warwick Medical School researchers Professor F P Cappuccio and Dr M A Miller hav
Finding has potential to limit toxic molecules
Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered a previously unrecognized role played by the gene HIF-1 as it helps cell survive when a lack of oxygen decreases production of an energy-rich molecule called ATP and increases production of toxic molecules. ATP supplies energy the cell needs to perform each of its many chemical reactions and tasks, and in this way acts as the “currency” for the cell’s energy economy.
A report
Researchers at Purdue University have discovered a molecular mechanism that may play a crucial role in cancer’s ability to resist chemotherapy and radiation treatment and that also may be involved in Alzheimer’s and heart disease.
The scientists, using an innovative imaging technique invented at Purdue, have learned that a protein previously believed to be confined to the nucleus of healthy cells actually shuttles between the nucleus and cytoplasm, the region of the cell surr
For the first time, Johns Hopkins researchers were able to easily jumpstart the activity of a well-known cancer protein in live cells with a small molecule, a strategy that pinpointed key players in the cancer process and can be used to determine new therapeutic targets. What’s more, the scientists’ study, published in the March 3 issue of Science, identifies a simple method to further understand the complex mechanisms that underlie cancer as well as other diseases and may provide an ea
Bird experts believed for years that once a bird learned songs, the calls stayed relatively fixed for life. But a new Cornell University study finds that male loons change their tunes when they move into a new territory.
Professor Charles Walcott poses with a toy loon in his office. His latest research provides valuable insights into the loon’s social and territorial behavior, which has implications for conservation efforts.
The study, to be published in the March iss
The vast differences between humans and chimpanzees are due more to changes in gene regulation than differences in individual genes themselves, researchers from Yale, the University of Chicago, and the Hall Institute in Parkville, Victoria, Australia, argue in the 9 March 2006 issue of the journal Nature.
The scientists provide powerful new evidence for a 30-year-old theory, proposed in a classic paper from Mary-Claire King and Allan Wilson of Berkeley. That 1975 paper documented
Texas biologists studying a poison dart frog mimicry complex find that predator learning can effect the evolution of mimicry
Studying neotropical poison dart frogs, biologists at the University of Texas at Austin uncovered a new way that the frog species can evolve to look similar, and it hinges on the way predators learn to avoid the toxic, brightly colored amphibians.
In the Mar. 8 issue of Nature, Catherine Darst and Molly Cummings show that a harmless, colorful fr
There is the heart of gold, and then there is the heart that glows. Literally.
Cornell researchers have genetically engineered mice whose hearts glow with a green light every time they beat. The development gives researchers insights into how hearts develop in living mouse embryos and could improve our understanding of irregular heartbeats, known as arrhythmias, as well as open doors to observing cellular processes to better understand basic physiology and disease.
Imagine seeing a former high school classmate you always wanted to know better. Then imagine seeing that kid who used to push you in the hallways. Do you react differently? What happens in your brain during these encounters?
In fact, different areas of the brain react differently when recognizing others, depending on the emotions attached to the memory, a team of Cornell University research psychologists has found. The team, led by professor of psychology Robert Johnston, has bee
Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have identified an important circuit in the spinal cord that controls the speed with which our leg muscles contract and relax. Their findings mark an important milestone in understanding the neural circuitry that coordinates walking movements – one of the main obstacles in developing new treatments for spinal cord injuries.
“Knowing which circuits are important and understanding how they control the essential aspects of walking sh
Researchers at MIT and Harvard Medical School have identified a compound that interferes with the pathogenic effects of Huntington’s disease, a discovery that could lead to development of a new treatment for the disease.
There is no cure for Huntington’s, a neurodegenerative disorder that now afflicts 30,000 Americans, with another 150,000 at risk. The fatal disease, which is genetically inherited, usually strikes in midlife and causes uncontrolled movements, loss of co
What have Black-eyed peas got to do with nanotechnology? As well as sharing their name with a chart-topping U.S. band, Black-eyed peas (also known as Cowpeas) are being used by scientists at the John Innes Centre in Norwich (JIC) [1] to grow virus particles that can be decorated with a chemical turning the particles into a kind of molecular capacitor.
Nanotechnology is the study of tiny structures in the scale of 1/100,000 of the width of a human hair and crosses the disciplines of chemis
… can inclusions bodies be good news for neurodegenerative diseases?
A potential new treatment for neurodegenerative disorders, which seems to be able to reduce the toxic protein aggregates characteristic of many of these diseases, is published online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Since it is believed that in most neurodegenerative disorders, like Parkinson and Huntington’s disease (PD and HD respectively), abnormal protein aggre
Seven years ago a number of breeders’ groups showed interest in the genetic analysis of the autochthonous breeds of horse from the Basque Country. Thus, at the Department of Genetics, Physical Anthropology and Animal Physiology of the University of the Basque Country (EHU-UPV), sheep, cows and horses native to Euskal Herria were studied. The aim of this livestock study was to find out the state of conservation of these breeds and also to identify the animals. What is more, thanks to the work of t
Chemotherapy for a disorder of the immune system may – at least in theory – be effective against severe human avian influenza infection, this suggest scientists at the Karolinska Institutet.
The Hypothesis is published on online by The Lancet. The authors suggest that although chemotherapy for avian influenza is a substantial jump in thinking, such therapy could still be reasonable, particularly since it has been shown to be very effective in decreasing mortality in an immune diso
Scientists at the University of the West of England and the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at the Bristol Children’s Hospital have just won funding for a two-year project aimed at improving the outcome of bone marrow stem-cell transplants in young leukaemia patients.
After a stem cell transplant there is a significant risk that grafted donor white blood cells, known as T-cells, will attack the recipient and may cause a fatal complication called graft versus host disease (GvHD). In Bris
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