Vets at the University of Liverpool are looking for Dobermann volunteers to participate in a research project to combat canine heart disease.
The dogs will take part in a screening programme to detect early signs of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), a heart condition that is particularly common in the breed.
The disease, which can affect dogs, cats and humans, causes the heart to become enlarged and weakened. Over a number of years the contraction of the heart begins to dec
“This is an exciting early step in developing a sustainable system for producing electricity from hydrogen” said Professor Chris Pickett (Associate Head of the Biological Chemistry Department at JIC). ”In Nature iron–sulphur enzymes catalyse a range of important chemical reactions that industry can only do by using precious metal catalysts and/or high temperatures and pressures. Based on Nature’s blueprint we are a step closer to building an iron-sulfur catalyst for reactions fundamental to a sust
B cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is an incurable disease in which cells in the bone marrow grow and survive to the point where they become abnormal and malignant (leukemic). The progression of the disease is slow and there has been a lack of information regarding the rate of production of CLL cells, and the time-course of their death.
For years, doctors and scientists believed that CLL was a static disease of long-lived lymphocytes — that the leukemia cells were both immo
A team led by biologists at the University of California, San Diego has discovered a molecule in roundworms that makes them susceptible to Bacillus thuringiensis toxin, or Bt toxin—a pesticide produced by bacteria and widely used by organic farmers and in genetically engineered crops to ward off insect pests.
Their findings should facilitate the design and use of Bt toxins to prevent insects, which the researchers believe also possess the molecule, from developing resistance to Bt
A 115-million-year-old fossil of a tiny egg-laying mammal thought to be related to the platypus provides compelling evidence of multiple origins of acute hearing in humans and other mammals.
The discovery of the prehistoric jawbone, reported in the Feb. 11, 2005, issue of Science, suggests that the transformation of bones from the jaw into the small bones of the middle ear occurred at least twice in the evolutionary lines of living mammals after their split from a common ancesto
Critical connections that neurons form in the brain during development turn out to rely on common but overlooked cells, called glia. These cells were known to support the neurons in adults, but had never been fingered as players in forming the connections between neurons, known as synapses.
The Stanford University School of Medicine researchers who conducted the work, led by Ben Barres, MD, PhD, professor of neurobiology, also discovered two of the proteins made by glial cell
Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have discovered a cluster of 12 genes on the X chromosome in mice that appears to play an important role in reproduction. Reporting in the journal Cell, the scientists showed that knocking out just one of the genes resulted in reduced fertility in male mice.
The researchers found the cluster, which they dubbed the reproductive homeobox X-linked (or Rhox) genes, is selectively expressed in male and female reprod
Plays roles in flowering, methylation
Biologists at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered an entirely new cellular “machine” in plants that plays a significant role in plant flowering and DNA methylation, a key chemical process essential for an organism’s development. A team headed by Craig Pikaard, Ph, D., Washington University professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, has discovered a fourth kind of RNA polymerase found only in plants and speculated to have been a
(1) Genetics Research and Obesity
(2) Osteoporosis Prevention and Vitamin B12
Genetics Research Unlocks a Key Regulator of Weight in Women
“He can eat like a horse.” “She eats like a bird.”
Recently, Jose Ordovas, PhD, and colleagues shed some light on a genetic factor in obesity. Ordovas, director of the Nutrition and Genomics Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University uncovered two variants in
The Protein Structure Initiative (PSI), a national program aimed at determining the three-dimensional shapes of a wide range of proteins, has now determined more than 1,000 different structures. These structures will shed light on how proteins function in many life processes and could lead to targets for the development of new medicines.
The PSI is a 10-year, approximately $600 million project funded largely by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), part
Researchers in California, Israel, and Germany have compared three distantly related species – baker’s yeast, a worm, and the fruit fly – and reported that protein “wiring” connections in one species are often conserved in all three. This first-of-its-kind analysis of three higher level organisms published in the February 8 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences supports both the concept of a basic wiring diagram for all eukaryotic cells, and the idea that more selective pha
Potential for replacing damaged tissue
The first evidence of cardiac progenitor cells – rare, specialized stem cells located in the newborn heart of rats, mice and humans – has been shown by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine. The cells are capable of differentiation into fully mature heart tissue. Called isl1+ cells, these cardiac progenitor cells are stem cells that have been programmed to form heart muscle during fetal growth. Unti
Steve Yanoviak tosses ants from very high places: tropical forest canopy trees. In the 10 February, 2005 issue of the journal, Nature, Yanoviak, ant biologist, Mike Kaspari, and biomechanics expert, Robert Dudley, publish an amazing observation: canopy ant workers (Cephalotes atratus L) jettisoned from branches 30 m above the ground, glide backwards to the trunk of the same tree with incredible accuracy. This is the first published account of directed gliding in wingless insects.
The adult male zebra finch knows only one scratchy tune learned in its youth, which it performs repeatedly and intensely when females are listening. But occasionally, the finch might improvise, experimenting with a slower, more sultry variation or emphasizing different notes.
Neurobiologists studying the finch now say the improvisation arises from a component of a crucial learning circuit in a section of the forebrain that seems to generate the trial and error necessary to master s
Forget a box of chocolates and a dozen roses. When it comes to attracting a mate, the male sagebrush cricket brings a special nuptial gift to his partner. During copulation, these insect Romeos offer their Juliets a peculiar food gift: females chew off the ends of the males’ fleshy hind wings and ingest fluid that is seeping from the wounds they inflict.
However, once males have endured this “love bite,” their chances of finding another partner are slim because they lack the energy to
A new species of black coral has been discovered off southern California, including around the Channel Islands, by Milton Love, University of California, Santa Barbara marine researcher, and Mary Yoklavich of NOAA Fisheries. The discovery came during dives by the researchers in “Delta,” the submersible.
The new species, found at depths of approximately 300 to 725 feet, is reported this week in the online scientific journal Zootaxa by taxonomist Dennis Opresko of Oak Ridge National
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