Stem cell research. Just the mention of the controversial study stirs up a storm of debate.
The divisive research has become a political hot potato, even emerging as a campaign issue. One presidential candidate has declared it an ethical and moral issue that must not be treated lightly; the other has pledged to lift a partial ban on the research. In California, voters will vote on a measure that would devote $3 billion to human embryonic stem cell experiments.
Even a prom
This week’s lead editorial discusses the benefits and potential risks of allowing genomic information to be freely available on the internet—and supports the recent report by the US National Research Council recommending that such information should remain freely accessible to all.
The editorial comments: ‘But while free and open access to these data is a boon to science, it carries some risk: among the genome sequences freely available on the internet are those for more than 100 pa
Scientists from IVPP, Field Museum and University of Chicago describe a new Chinese reptile from the Triassic and propose a unique feeding method
The well-preserved fossil of a newly discovered reptile species may explain the function of the extremely long neck for which some protorosaurs are known – a feature that has puzzled scientists for decades. The Protorosauria is an order of diverse predatory reptiles that lived as far back as 280 million years ago. Scientists have never been
Neurobiologists have pinpointed the molecular storehouse that supplies the neurotransmitter receptor proteins used for learning-related changes in the brain. They also found hints that the same storage compartments, called recycling endosomes, might be more general transporters for ’memory molecules’ used to remodel the neuron to strengthen its connections with its neighbors.
They said their finding constitutes an important step toward understanding the machinery by whic
Biologists have discovered that the air pollutant nitric oxide acts as a plant hormone to delay flowering in plants. The scientists discovered that while plants produce their own internal nitric oxide to regulate flowering, they are also influenced by external concentrations of the chemical.
The scientists said that although their findings are basic in nature, they suggest that the massive amounts of nitric oxide emitted as air pollutants from burning fossil fuels could affect the c
Mesothelioma is an aggressive cancer of the chest cavity that kills about 2000 people a year in the United States. Seventy to eighty percent of patients with this rare cancer have had exposure to asbestos. It has also been proposed that simian virus 40 (SV40), a contaminant in some polio vaccines administered in the 1950’s and 1960’s, might be a cause. However, studies reporting the detection of SV40 DNA in human tumors (including mesotheliomas, and also some lymphomas, brain cancers, an
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have identified a critical gene for plants that start their lives as seeds buried in soil. They say the burial of seeds was an adaptation that likely helped plants spread from humid, wet climates to drier, hostile environments.
In a study published in the Sept. 24 issue of the journal Science, the researchers describe how a gene called phytochrome-interacting factor 1, or PIF1, affects the production of protochlorophyll, a precu
Few have heard of the degenerative, deadly disease called Ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T) but a University of Alberta researcher is hoping to provide clues to this mysterious disorder.
Dr. Shelagh Campbell, from the U of A’s Department of Biological Sciences, is a basic researcher who studies how normal cell cycles are regulated, by analyzing genes that are responsible for repairing DNA damage that offer insights into human diseases like cancer and A-T. A-T is a progressive, degenera
McGill research shows fish eating junk food
The junk food phenomena has hit bottom- the bottom of the St. Lawrence River. According to McGill University researchers, some freshwater fish are opting out of their usual diet of insects and crustaceans and dining instead on invasive European quagga mussels: the River’s junk food. This change may have negative effects on fish growth and may also affect other freshwater animals. Although this research is focused on the St. Lawrence R
PNNL-USC team discovers how protein in teeth controls bone-like crystals to form steely enamel
Bone and enamel start with the same calcium-phosphate crystal building material but end up quite different in structure and physical properties. The difference in bone and enamel microstructure is attributed to a key protein in enamel that molds crystals into strands thousands of times longer and much stronger than those in bone. The dimension of an enamel strand is 100,000 by 50 by 25 nan
Large colonies of micro-organisms living under rocks have been discovered in the most hostile and extreme regions of the Arctic and Antarctic – giving new insights on survival of life on other planets.
Reporting in this week’s Nature, scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and Scripps Institution of Oceanography reveal their surprise findings that rock-dwelling micro-organisms can photosynthesise and store carbon just as much as the plants, lichens and mosses that live
A naturally occurring chemical that may repel yellow fever mosquitoes can now be made in the laboratory, Indiana University Bloomington scientists report.
“The synthesis requires only seven steps,” said organic chemist P. Andrew Evans, who led the research. “It should be quite trivial to scale this up to the production of large quantities.”
Gaur acid is a natural skin secretion of the gaur, an Asian wild ox. Preliminary evidence suggests that this chemical discourages th
Colgate University biology professor Ken Belanger and an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Washington University in St. Louis, Pacific Northwest National Laboratories, and Saitama University are collaborating to better understand how plants protect themselves from naturally occurring but potentially damaging high-energy molecules. Their findings, said Belanger, could one day help farmers boost crop yields and shield their harvests from extreme environmental conditions, and may have even
To develop new therapeutic approaches to cancer, it is essential to understand the long and extremely complex process that underlies it, in other words the various stages of cancer development from the initial mutation to the tumor. Having already identified the alteration that leads to Ewing’s sarcoma, a bone cancer which afflicts young people, an Inserm team at the Institut Curie has recently used a combination of novel techniques to show that there 86 deregulated genes in these tumors. One of
Morphine-free poppy
A handful of genes in a morphine free poppy could hold the key to producing improved pain management pharmaceuticals. Norman, the ’no-morphine’ poppy, is superior to morphine producing poppies as it produces thebaine and oripavine – compounds preferred by industry in the manufacture of alternative high value pain-killers.
CSIRO’s Dr Phil Larkin, and The Australian National University’s Anthony Millgate and Dr Barry Pogson have been wor
The unique connectivity pattern of a brain region determines the type of information available to it, and hence influences its function. Defining these patterns enhances our knowledge of human brain architecture and function. Non-invasive in vivo definition of brain connectivity patterns complements functional imaging and provides new understanding of disorders associated with developmental or regional alterations of brain connectivity. There are extensions to this approach to clinically important i
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