The Tree of Life is flourishing.
The Web-based project, a massive collaboration among scientists from all over the world, is growing more “leaves” and “branches” all the time. The project is basically a genealogy of life on Earth coupled with information about the characteristics of individual species and groups of organisms.
Having such scientific data available on the Web makes the information accessible to a wide range of scientists, spurring new collaborations and
Discovery may explain why more men than women develop the disease
UCLA scientists have discovered that a sex gene responsible for making embryos male and forming the testes is also produced by the brain region targeted by Parkinson’s disease. Published in the Feb. 21 edition of Current Biology, the new research may explain why more men than women develop the degenerative disorder, which afflicts roughly 1 million Americans.
“Men are 1.5 times more likely to develo
Inactivating a protein called mammalian Rad9 could make cancer cells easier to kill with ionizing radiation, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
The researchers found that Rad9, previously considered a “watchman” that checks for DNA damage, is actually a “repairman” that fixes dangerous breaks in the DNA double helix. They found Rad9 is especially active in telomeres, the protective ends of chromosomes.
Because of this new rol
Cyanobacterium sequenced in just six months
In just six months of collaboration, a Department of Energy grand challenge led by Washington University in St. Louis has resulted in the sequencing and annotation of a cyanobacterium that could yield clues to how environmental conditions influence key carbon fixation processes at the gene-mRNA-protein levels in an organism.
Two of the most critical environmental and energy science challenges of the twenty-first century are b
Researchers at Florida State University’s National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and Scripps Florida have developed and evaluated a robust new system for analyzing how drugs bind to proteins. This groundbreaking work could speed the delivery of potential new drugs and improve existing ones.
The work, which appears this week in the journal Analytical Chemistry, is the first published paper to result from a partnership between Scripps and a Florida university.
Scr
Researchers are enlisting seals, sea lions, tunas, and sharks to serve as ocean sensors, outfitting these top predators with electronic tags that gather detailed reports on oceanographic conditions and, in many cases, transmit the data via satellite. The data are proving useful to both biologists and oceanographers, yielding new information about the migrations and behavior of the animals and about the environments in which they live.
“We’re using these animals as ocean sensors
Researchers from The University of Texas at Austin studying electric fish have gained new insight into how memory is stored at the level of neurons.
Their finding, published in the Feb. 16 issue of Neuron, could help researchers better understand memory formation and neural disorders like epilepsy in humans.
Dr. Harold Zakon, Dr. Jörg Oestreich and colleagues show that when electric fish zap each other in dark waters, their neurons store a memory of the sizzling communi
Two new research studies on progeria, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, detail the damage a mutant protein does to blood vessel cells of humans and mice. The discoveries offer increased hope for a cure for progeria, a genetic condition fatal in children, but may also provide key insight into the cause of adult heart disease.
In children with progeria, a mutant protein accumulates in blood vessel cells, hampering their ability to grow and multipl
While more than two-thirds of the food in U.S. markets contains at least some amount of a genetically engineered (GE) crop, researchers want to know if Americans consider GE food a health risk or benefit.
The result: Americans are split on the issue, but they have become slightly more skeptical over the past three years, according to a new study from Cornell University.
“Depending on whom you ask, the technology is either beneficial or has negative effects on health and e
Research offers hope to increase islet supply to cure type 1 diabetes
Researchers at the University of Minnesota’s Diabetes Institute for Immunology and Transplantation have successfully reversed diabetes in monkeys using transplanted islet cells from pigs.
Survival of pig islet transplants was made possible with a novel immunosuppressive protocol. Graft survival did not require genetic modification of donor pigs or coating or encapsulation of donor islets.
Rese
Approximately 10,000 years after the last mammoths used to roam across the North American and Eurasian spaces, they still remain an exciting subject of inquiry for researchers. Mammoths and elephants belong to the most ancient group of mammals, therefore, when studying mammoths the researchers reveal secrets of evolutionary origin of contemporary species. Discussions continue about genetic kinship of mammoths and contemporary elephants.
Now, Russian researchers working at several institu
Russian geneticist B.A. Malyarchuk, Institute of Biological Problems of the North, Far-Eastern Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, in Magadan, and Polish researcher J.Czarny have ascertained that African women’s contribution into the European genotype is much lower than it could have been expected, taking into consideration the lengthy history of contacts between representatives of different human races. The conclusion was made by the researchers after they had analyzed more than 17 thousand
Biologists at Brown University and the University of California–Berkeley have discovered that two proteins team up to turn on an assortment of ovarian genes critical to the production of healthy eggs. This finding, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, sheds important light on the biochemical processes underpinning fertility.
Human eggs rely on handmaidens. Called granulosa cells, they surround eggs and deliver nutrients and hormones. Without granulos
Models could help speed discovery of new drugs
In an important step toward accelerating drug discovery, researchers have created computer models of more than 900 cell receptors from a class of proteins known to be important drug targets. The models, which are now freely available to noncommercial users, promise to help scientists narrow their research inquiries, potentially speeding up the discovery of new drug compounds. The research appears in the February 17, 2006 issue of the
Researchers at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research are developing a method to determine in a matter of hours if someone has been exposed to a bioterrorism agent just by looking at the pattern of active genes in that person’s white blood cells. They report their findings today at the ASM Biodefense Research Meeting.
“Effective prophylaxis and treatment for infections caused by biological threat agents (BTA) rely upon early diagnosis and rapid initiation of therapy. Howeve
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine discovered that a key receptor protein is a critical component of the internal molecular clock in mammals. What’s more, this molecule –called Rev-erb– is sensitive to lithium and may help shed light on circadian rhythm disorders, including bipolar disorder. The findings, which also provide insight into clock-controlled aspects of metabolism, are reported in this week’s issue of Science.
“We’re interested in th
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