Adaptive valuation of social images by Rhesus Macaques
In a finding that deepens our understanding of animal social cognition, researchers at Duke University Medical Center have demonstrated for the first time that monkeys, like humans, value information according to its social content. People readily pay to see powerful or sexually attractive individuals, and, according to this new study, monkeys will also “pay” to view these kinds of images.
Both economics and evolution
UCR Biologist Mark Springer, Part of Research Team Publishing in Journal Science
One in five mammals living on Earth is a bat, yet their evolutionary history is largely unknown because of a limited fossil record and conflicting or incomplete theories about their origins and divergence. Now, a research team including University of California, Riverside Biology Professor Mark Springer, has published a paper in the Jan. 28 issue of the journal Science that uses molecular biology and
In the most detailed large-scale study to date of the proteins that package DNA, researchers have mapped a family of switches that turn genes on and off. Their findings may help scientists understand regulatory mechanisms underlying cancer and human development.
The research team includes first author Bradley Bernstein, recipient of a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) physician postdoctoral fellowship who works in the Harvard University laboratory of HHMI investigator Stua
As the human genome sequence neared completion several years ago, geneticists eagerly began discussing which other organisms to sequence — partly to see which DNA regions are similar across species and therefore likely to serve critical functions. But these discussions raised an important, and potentially expensive, question: How many species need to be sequenced to know whether evolution has conserved a given stretch of DNA?
In an article published in the January 2005 issue of PL
Medical Research Council (MRC) scientists, in collaboration with colleagues from British and Italian universities, have unveiled a mechanism that causes the death of brain cells (neurons) in stroke. The discovery may help explain why some therapy approaches for stroke have been unsuccessful and identifies potential research avenues for the development of new treatments for stroke and other degenerative brain diseases.
Stroke is a consequence of an abrupt interruption of blood f
The first evidence that a group of proteins called phosphatases play a key role in the development of the nervous system, has been shown in fruit flies and mice by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, in collaboration with scientists at the Salk Institute, La Jolla, California. The phosphatases are required for maintenance of neural stem cells and for silencing expression of neuronal genes in non-nervous system tissues.
Published in
As any dedicated video game player knows, the first requirement for using a weapon or tool is finding it. And it is no different for cell biologists and clinicians who want to take control of gene expression in cells to create therapies to treat disease. While cells have a variety of ways to control gene expression, the trick for players in this game is to recognize them amidst the incredibly complex background of cellular machinery.
Now, in a paper in the January 28th issue of C
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers have identified a molecular mechanism in the liver that explains, for the first time, how consuming foods rich in saturated fats and trans-fatty acids causes elevated blood levels of cholesterol and triglycerides and increases one’s risk of heart disease and certain cancers.
In the Jan. 28 issue of Cell, scientists led by Bruce Spiegelman, PhD, report that the harmful effects of saturated and trans fats are set in motion by a biochemica
Stanford, California. Both plant and animal growth is controlled by steroid hormones–signaling molecules that tell specific genes in cells to begin the physiological process of increasing cell size. Although these molecular managers operate similarly in plants and animals, the chain of events in regulating cellular functions appears to be very different in the two kingdoms. In animals, hormone reception begins in the nucleus of the cell. In plants, a steroid hormone family called brassinosteroids
New imaging tool may change the way cancer is diagnosed and treated
The evolution over the last two decades of the nanocrystals known as quantum dots has seen the growth of this revolutionary new tool from electronic materials science to far-reaching biological applications that will allow researchers to study cell processes at the level of a single molecule and may result in new and better ways to diagnose and treat cancers.
Fluorescent semiconductor quantum dots, or qdo
A toxic chemical painted on the bottom of large vessels to protect against barnacles may cause hearing difficulties in whales and other mammals, according to a study by Yale researchers published in the Biophysical Journal.
The chemical tributyltin oxide (TBT) affects the mechanical activity of the outer hair cells, which modulate and boost incoming sound energy to the inner hair cells, according to senior author Joseph Santos-Sacchi, professor of surgery and neurobiology at Yale
Taking steroids is a definite no-no for human athletes, but treating plants with steroids could offer performance enhancement of a more desirable nature by boosting the biomass and seed yields of crops. Unfortunately, plant steroids are complex, expensive chemicals, and the biological mechanisms by which they alter plant growth and development have remained largely a mystery.
Now, however, two research articles by Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Joanne Chory and her c
Herstatin blocks signaling inside cells that leads to deadly glioblastoma growth
A protein developed by scientists at Oregon Health & Science University blocks the growth of glioblastoma, an aggressive and deadly brain tumor, in laboratory rats, a new study shows. Herstatin inhibits the activation of a family of enzymes responsible for signaling inside tumor cells that tells the cells to proliferate and display other malignant properties, said Gail Clinton, Ph.D., professor of bio
Researchers have discovered a way to make light sensitive cells in the eye by switching on a single gene.
According to research published online today in Nature, the team from Imperial College London and the University of Manchester, have discovered that activating the melanopsin gene in the nerve cells causes them to become light responsive, or photoreceptive.
Using mouse cells, the researchers found that melanopsin could be used to make neurones light responsive. T
A team of applied mathematicians, physicists, and biologists has discovered how the Venus flytrap snaps up its prey in a mere tenth of a second by actively shifting the curved shape of its mouth-like leaves. Their study, published in the Jan. 27 issue of the journal Nature, investigates the series of events that occur from the time the plant’s leaves are stimulated to the time the trap is clamped shut.
“Our work complements prior research,” says Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan, G
Coming full circle has new meaning for researchers who demonstrated a promising new approach integrating scientific experimentation and mathematical modeling to study a key signaling pathway that helps cells decide whether to grow or die.
With implications for disease characterization, biotechnology and drug design, the approach tested by researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and the Georgia Institute of Technology offers an efficient way of gaining useful
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