Most visitors to the seaside are content to ride donkeys, eat ice cream, and build sandcastles. But, University of Leeds scientists have no time for sunbathing; they are witnessing the birth of a new species on the rocky shores of North Yorkshire.
Littorina saxatilis (right) is an unremarkable rough periwinkle – a small, grey-brown sea-snail which litters the coast by the million. But it has overcome its lack of charisma and grabbed the attention of scientists trying to unlock the secrets
Scientists have determined a three-dimensional (3-D) molecular image of how anthrax toxin enters human cells, giving scientists more potential targets for blocking the toxin, the lethal part of anthrax bacteria. The finding also points to a possible way to design anthrax toxin molecules that selectively attack tumor cells, as described in the journal Nature published online July 4. The study, funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Healt
Female fruit flies sleep around. Nobody knows exactly why, but Nina Wedell of Leeds University’s school of biology aims to find out.
Conventional wisdom on animal mating strategies said that females sought male partners with healthy genes to pass on to offspring, but this theory is now discredited, as it does not explain all variations of behaviour.
Instead it has been found that females often mate with numerous partners and screen sperm so that only the most healthy is used. What
Scientists have made the first recordings of the human brain’s awareness of its own body, using the illusion of a strategically-placed rubber hand to trick the brain. Their findings shed light on disorders of self-perception such as schizophrenia, stroke and phantom limb syndrome, where sufferers may no longer recognize their own limbs or may experience pain from missing ones.
In the study published today in Science Express online, University College London’s (UCL) Dr Henrik Ehrsson, workin
Of course, not the crab itself, but its hepatopancreas, which is a gland performing functions of both liver and pancreas. And not an entire hepatopancreas, but only some of its enzymes isolated by the Moscow scientists supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) and Foundation for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises (FASIE).
Doctor of chemical sciences Galina Rudenskaya from the Moscow State University and her colleagues from small enterprise TRINITA have made an im
European Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin today rejected stories in several media claiming he had called for genetic testing of all newborn babies in Europe. Mr Busquin said: “I have never advocated any such point of view. It is not the role nor the intention of the Commission to ask EU Member States to impose universal genetic screening of babies. Genetic testing is a matter of free choice and of ethical rules being decided by EU Member States. The Commission does not regulate ethics. I cert
Scientists in the Conway Institute of Biomolecular & Biomedical Research have restored the sight of blind zebrafish whose eyes failed to develop due to a genetic mutation. The findings, published this week in Developmental Biology, are exciting first steps on a long road to understanding eye diseases in humans.
Dr. Breandan Kennedy and his colleagues at the University of Washington, Seattle and the Hubrecht Laboratory in Utrecht, Netherlands first identified a family of eyeless fish. They th
UK Scientists are leading research which seeks to unlock the migratory secrets of endangered marine turtles at all four corners of the Atlantic this summer. Members of the public are invited to log on and follow their progress on a ground breaking free access website provided by USA non-profit SEATURTLE.ORG.
This summer, marine turtle scientists from the Centre for Ecology and Conservation of the University of Exeter in Cornwall are working with a range of national and international
Abnormalities in the spindles (the bi-polar thread like structures that link and pull the chromosomes during cell division) of human embryos before implantation may be the primary reason for many of the chromosome defects observed in early human development, a scientist said on Wednesday 30 June 2004 at the 20th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. Dr. Katerina Chatzimeletiou, from the Bridge Fertility Centre, London, UK, told the conference that her resear
Five children have been born conceived from previously isolated and frozen egg cells, Italian scientists announced today (Wednesday 30 June 2004) at the 20th annual conference of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology. The method bears great promise for patients who live in countries where embryo cryopreservation (freezing) is prohibited, like Italy, or who object to embryo freezing for personal reasons, said Dr. Paolo Levi Setti from the Istituto Clinico Humanitas in Milan.
Doctors in Denmark have succeeded in producing a two-cell embryo after ovarian tissue was removed, frozen, and then thawed and replaced two years later. It is believed that this is the first time a European group has succeeded in creating an embryo in this way.
Dr. Claus Yding Andersen told the 20th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology: “It is only a matter of time before a woman becomes pregnant and gives birth to a child after having a thawed ovar
A new £18M Medical Research Council (MRC) facility to understand and compare the genetics of disease in mice and humans will be opened today, Wednesday 30 June, by Lord Sainsbury, Minister for Science and Technology.
The Mary Lyon Centre, at Harwell, Oxfordshire, headed by professor Bob Johnson, will primarily support research carried out at the neighbouring MRC Mammalian Genetics Unit which uses mouse genetics to understand what human genes do and how they contribute to health and disease,
Vital food crops will be protected worldwide under a new international agreement which comes into force today.
The UK is one of more than 50 countries committed to the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, which aims to improve food security and promote sustainable farming.
The treaty aims to ensure that plant genetic resources, which are the property of the country in which they are found, are conserved, used sustainably, and that their benefit
Significant abnormalities observed in cloned mice help reinforce the need to continue to avoid the reproductive cloning of humans, a scientist said on Wednesday 30 June 2004 at the 20th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. Dr. Takumi Takeuchi, from Cornell University, New York, USA told a media briefing that he and Dr. Gianpiero Palermo’s team had compared imprinting abnormalities (the process where specific genes inherited from both parents are silent)
Research aimed at teasing apart the workings of RNA enzymes eventually may lead to ways of monitoring fat metabolism and might even assist in the search for signs of life on Mars, according to University of Michigan researcher Nils Walter. His latest work was published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences June 24.
Walter and associates at U-M and colleague Xiaowei Zhuang and associates at Harvard University, use techniques that allow them to study single molecules
The discovery of what is believed to be the oldest evidence yet found of a human hereditary genetic disorder has been announced by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The researchers are Dr. Uri Zilberman and Patricia Smith, the Joel Wilbush Professor of Medical Anthropology, both of the Faculty of Dental Medicine of the Hebrew University and Dr. Silvana Condemi a senior researcher at the French Research Institute in Jerusalem. They are among the authors of an article in the
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