Like humans, other animals are faced with everyday obstacles in their physical environments and must engage appropriate decision-making and motor skills to deal with them. Navigating these obstacles can involve highly complex events in mammals and other vertebrates, but in new work, researchers have employed an ingenious obstacle-based system for studying the control and structure of goal-oriented motor programs in the fruit fly Drosophila.
The findings are reported in Current Biol
Magnetic orientation is critical to the migratory success of many bird species. By studying the influence of light on the ability of migratory birds to orient to magnetic signals, researchers have found clues to suggest that birds’ orientation abilities may be more complex than previously thought and that birds may be able to interpret magnetic signals by more than one mechanism. The work is reported in Current Biology by a team including Thorsten Ritz, of the University of California, Irvi
It has been known for some time that many species of birds use the Earth’s magnetic field to select a direction of movement–for example, during migration. However, although such birds clearly have a sense of direction, until now it has not been possible to train birds to move in a certain direction in the laboratory, even if they are motivated by a food reward. The reasons for this failure have been perplexing, but researchers now report that they have been able to successfully accomplish thi
Malfunctioning bone marrow cells that produce insulin appear to cause a dangerous nerve condition called neuropathy that disables many people with diabetes, said a research team led by Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
The report from researchers at BCM, Shiga University of Medical Science in Japan, and the University of Chicago appears online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The finding not only provides a basis for understanding the
Vector improved in two ways creates a sustained, partial correction to bleeding problems in mice
A virus that typically infects insects could help with the development of gene therapy treatment for Hemophilia A, a condition in which even a bump on the knee can cause serious internal bleeding in people.
Researchers at the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine improved a vector — a vehicle that delivers gene therapy to cells — in two ways to
Recursive splicing is key
Important messages require accurate transmission. Big genes are especially challenging because they combine many coding segments (exons) that lie between long stretches of non-coding elements (introns). During processing, introns are snipped out and exons pasted together to form a template for proteins called messenger RNA (mRNA). Mistakes in RNA processing can reduce the expression of a functional protein or, worse, produce an abnormal protein that interfe
Clashing colonies of sea anemones fight as organized armies with distinct castes of warriors, scouts, reproductives and other types, according to a new study.
The sea anemone Anthopleura elegantissima lives in large colonies of genetically identical clones on boulders around the tide line. Where two colonies meet they form a distinct boundary zone. Anemones that contact an animal from another colony will fight, hitting each other with special tentacles that leave patches of stinging
Scientists have successfully converted human embryonic stem cells into lung cells, taking a first step towards building human lungs for transplantation.
According to research to be published in the journal Tissue Engineering, the team from Imperial College London, took human embryonic stem cells and ’directed’ them to convert into the type of cells needed for gas exchange in the lung, known as mature small airway epithelium.
Dame Professor Julia Polak,
Research from The University of Nottingham’s School of Chemistry has contributed to a breakthrough in the complex world of understanding how the quantum mechanics of chemical reactions work.
By understanding chemical processes better chemists will be able to conduct experiments more quickly and accurately, and make new chemicals more cheaply and efficiently.
A study led by Dr Stuart Althorpe, Reader in Physical Chemistry, is published in the August 19 issue of the presti
The latest designs to come out of the d3o products lab are smart, figure hugging components with a cleverly designed geometry following the natural curvature and contours of your body. The macro-densifying mechanism maximises contact and therefore minimises pressure transmitted during impact. Take the elbow component in the picture for example: the geometry is designed to open when the arm is flat, but when the arm is closed, the geometry is configured to provide maximum surface area and therefor
The world’s three leading public repositories for DNA and RNA sequence information have reached 100 gigabases [100,000,000,000 bases; the ’letters’ of the genetic code] of sequence. Thanks to their data exchange policy, which has paved the way for the global exchange of many types of biological information, the three members of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration [INSDC, www.insdc.org] – EMBL Bank [Hinxton, UK], GenBank [Bethesda, USA] and the DNA Data Bank of Japan [M
Applying math and computers to the drug discovery process, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a method to predict protein separation behavior directly from protein structure. This new multi-scale protein modeling approach may reduce the time it takes to bring pharmaceuticals to market and may have significant implications for an array of biotechnology applications, including bioprocessing, drug discovery, and proteomics, the study of protein structure and function.
Signs of heart failure may be in the blood. Cardiac researchers at Jefferson Medical College have found an enzyme in the blood that could be a potential marker for heart failure.
A team of scientists led by Walter Koch, Ph.D., director of the Center for Translational Medicine in the Department of Medicine in Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, previously showed that an enzyme called GRK2 or beta-adrenergic kinase (ßARK1) is critically impo
Surprising findings from just five patients has led to the first proof of how the rare disorder Fanconi anemia causes chromosomal instability. A team of international researchers, led by scientists at Rockefeller University, reports the findings in the September issue of Nature Genetics.
The scientists found a gene mutation not previously known to be related to Fanconi anemia, and they say that BRIP1 is the first gene associated with the disease whose protein has a known functio
Findings have implications for urinary tract infections
Scientists have discovered a new phenomenon in which one bacterial cell can stop the growth of another on physical contact. The bacteria that stop growing may go into a dormant state, rather than dying. The findings have implications for management of chronic diseases, such as urinary tract infections.
The discovery by a team of scientists working in the laboratory of David Low, professor of biology at the Unive
Many living things, from fruit flies to people, naturally produce disease-fighting chemicals, called antimicrobial peptides, to kill harmful bacteria. In a counter move, some disease-causing bacteria have evolved microbial detectors. The bacteria sense the presence of antimicrobial peptides as a warning signal. The alarm sets off a reaction inside the bacteria to avoid destruction.
University of Washington (UW) and McGill researchers have revealed a molecular mechanism whereby bacteria ca
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