MIT neuroscientists have discovered a new brain mechanism controlling the formation of lasting memories. This mechanism explains how signals between neurons stimulate production of the protein building blocks needed for long-term memory storage.
The study, which will appear in the Feb. 6 issue of the journal Cell, has broad implications for our understanding of how learning and memory normally occur, and how these abilities may be undermined in psychiatric and neurologic diseases.
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Are all tunas alike? It is true that they are all swift, powerful swimmers that benefit from high metabolic rates – and that in order to support these rates, they have evolved into a state of high heart rates. Consider the skipjack tuna, which has been clocked at a heart rate of over 200 beats-per-minute. But is the cardiac stamina of the cold water (endothermic) tuna, such as the bluefin, albacore and yellowfin, the same as that of its warm water (ecothermic) sister the mackerel? Why should it matte
A membrane protein, NCX1, that transports sodium and calcium into and out of cells, may determine the frequency as well as strength of the heartbeat, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas report.
The findings are published in today’s issue of Nature.
“This calcium transporter really is an important key to understanding how the heart is regulated,” said Dr. Donald Hilgemann, professor of physiology and senior author of the study. “At every beat, calcium in hear
Study with transgenic mice could lead to omega-3-containing meats, dairy products
Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have found that tissues from mice transgenic for a gene usually found in the c.elegans roundworm contain omega-3 fatty acids, consumption of which has been shown to protect against heart disease. Usually mammals cannot produce omega-3s from the more abundant omega-6 fatty acids, which do not have the health benefits of omega-3s. The finding, published
The possibility of using the Earth’s abundant supply of water as a cheap source of hydrogen is a step closer thanks to researchers from Imperial College London. By mimicking the method plants use to split water, researchers say that a highly energy efficient way to form cheap supplies of hydrogen fuel may be possible in the future.
Reporting online in the journal Science today Imperial researchers reveal the fine detail of the protein complex that drives photosynthesis – the process tha
A Purdue University researcher has successfully engineered plants that may not only lead to the production of anti-carcinogenic nutritional supplements, but also may be used to remove excess selenium from agricultural fields.
By introducing a gene that makes plants tolerate selenium, David Salt, professor of plant molecular physiology, has developed plants capable of building up in their tissues unusually high levels of a selenium compound. His interest in selenium stems in part from recent
Wart-like bumps of stinging cells cover the feeding arms and bell of a newly described deep-sea jelly, published by MBARI biologists in this month’s issue of the Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. This softball-sized, translucent jelly moves through the water like a shooting star, trailing four fleshy oral arms–but no tentacles–behind it. This and other unique features resulted in the jelly’s categorization as a new genus and species.
The MBARI researcher
Researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the University of Rome “La Sapienza” have found a way to restore some of the “regenerative” ability of tissues, which happens naturally in animals at the embryonic stage of development, but is lost shortly after birth. The scientists’ work, published this week in PNAS, gives new insight into how stem cells can be mobilized across the body, and how they take on specialized functions in tissue.
“Many labs have reported th
Scientists from the Glenn T. Seaborg Institute and the Chemical Biology and Nuclear Science Division at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in collaboration with researchers from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Russia (JINR), have discovered the two newest super heavy elements, element 113 and element 115.
In experiments conducted at the JINR U400 cyclotron with the Dubna gas-filled separator between July 14 and Aug. 10, 2003, the team of scientists observed atomic decay
In a report set for publication in the journal Biology of Reproduction, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Davis, describe a technique that yields fertile primate sperm when tissue from the testes of young rhesus monkeys are grafted into mice.
The research team, headed by Dr. Ina Dobrinksi of the Center for Animal Transgenesis and Germ Cell Research in the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, believes that this method could b
The mystery of where Earth’s first snakes lived as they were evolving into limbless creatures from their lizard ancestors has intrigued scientists for centuries. Now, the first study ever to analyze genes from all the living families of lizards has revealed that snakes made their debut on the land, not in the ocean. The discovery resolves a long-smoldering debate among biologists about whether snakes had a terrestrial or a marine origin roughly 150 million years ago–a debate rekindled recently
A subtle structural change that may play a role in the molecular machinery for making HIV-1 (the virus that causes AIDS) has been identified by scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and University of Maryland working at the Center for Advanced Research in Biotechnology (CARB). If confirmed in living cells, the mechanism, described in the Jan. 20 online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, might provide a new target for antiviral drugs.
Gene therapy techniques enhance the virus’s effectiveness in mice.
Mosquitoes are notorious for their ability to spread disease, but in some cases they may prove to be a boon instead of a bane. In a recent study, researchers at New York University School of Medicine found that one mosquito-borne virus automatically targets and kills tumor cells in mice. Most importantly, it does so while leaving healthy cells alone, a feature that may make it a promising treatment for some forms
Scans have pinpointed circuits in the monkey brain that could be precursors of those in humans for speech and language. As in humans, an area specialized for processing species-specific vocalizations is on the left side of the brain, report Drs. Amy Poremba, Mortimer Mishkin, and colleagues in NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Warren G. Magnuson Clinical Center (CC), components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the University of Iowa. An area near the left temple re
Using the latest terascale ASCI computers, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have revealed details of the reactive states and faster relaxation of molecules at the water-to-air interface.
Scientists Christopher Mundy and I-Feng Kuo created the first ab initio calculations of a stable aqueous liquid-vapor interface. The simulations serve as a robust predictive tool in the investigation of electronic properties of molecules at interfaces.
These complex theoretical m
A pint-sized, tree-dwelling Brazilian monkey has proven to be strikingly similar to humans when it comes to sexual responses, a national research team has discovered.
Through functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and collaborating institutions for the first time peered into the brains of fully conscious nonhuman primates to learn what’s really on their minds when it comes to sex. The research appears in the February 2004 issu
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