Weizmann Institute scientists reveal key part of nerve regeneration mechanism
A new study conducted by Weizmann Institute scientists has now uncovered a key process leading to the regeneration of peripheral nerves. Nerves in the peripheral nervous system (any part of the body aside from the brain and spinal cord) are capable of regenerating, though often they do so poorly or slowly. Scientists have been trying to understand how they regenerate in order to better treat damage to the pe
Conventional wisdom says that people deficient in one sense–such as vision or hearing–often acquire heightened acuity in another. These adjustments, of course, take place over the lifetime of an individual. Now it appears, however, that similar adjustments may occur over evolutionary time. Yoav Gilad and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthology in Germany and the Weizmann Institute in Israel have found a correlation between the loss of olfactory receptor (OR) genes, whi
How does the nervous system code, transmit, and process the information that steers our behaviour? Ronald S. Johansson’s research team at Umeå University in Sweden is now publishing its discovery of a new principle for this.
The prevailing view is that information is coded and transmitted by variations in the number of nerve impulses per time unit in the fibres of the nerve cells, that is, as a frequency code.
Johansson’s research team at the Section for Physiology present in the jo
By exposing rats to novel objects and measuring their brain signals, Duke University researchers have detected telltale signal reverberations in wide areas of the brain during sleep that reveal the process of consolidating memories. According to the researchers, their findings offer important evidence that extensive regions of the brain are involved in processing memories during a particular form of sleep, called slow-wave sleep.
The researchers said their findings lay to rest previous doub
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) scientists recently unveiled an online calculator on NIST’s Web site designed to make chemical analysis by mass spectrometry faster and more reliable. The tool also may make some chemical evidence introduced in criminal cases more trustworthy.
The NIST tool, called MassSpectator, automates the mathematical calculations needed to convert plots of mass spectrometry data into final results–a listing of the chemical components and conc
An innovative method that allows increased success and speed of protein crystallization – a crucial step in the laborious, often unsuccessful process to determine the 3-dimensional structure unique to each of the body’s tens of thousands of folded proteins – has been developed by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine and verified in tests with the Joint Center for Structural Genomics (JCSG) at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and the Genomics Institute
Researchers find odorant in human sweat that attracts female mosquitoes
Today, we know a little bit more about one of mankind’s deadliest enemies, the mosquito. Scientists have taken an important step toward understanding the mosquito’s sense of smell, an avenue of research that may lead to better ways to repel the deadly insect.
In a joint effort reported in the Jan. 15 issue of the journal Nature, researchers at Vanderbilt and Yale universities have verified that
The natural world is full of curves and three dimensions, but the ability to deliberately and rationally construct such complex structures using nanoscale building blocks has eluded nanotechnologists who are eager to add curved structures to their toolbox.
Now a team of Northwestern University chemists report they have discovered ways to construct nanoscale building blocks that assemble into flat or curved structures with a high level of predictability, depending on the architecture and com
About 5 million years ago, the first spiny-legged Tetragnatha spider landed on what is now known as the Hawaiian Islands, with subsequent generations evolving into different species to fill in specific niches in various habitats. Now, these spiders provide evidence for nature’s propensity for generating diversity in a systematic way.
In a new paper published in the Jan. 16 issue of Science, University of California, Berkeley, biologist Rosemary Gillespie uses genetic detective work to descr
Discovery, Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Flies in the Face of Past Assumptions
A UC Riverside team in the Entomology Department has found that genetically engineered mosquitoes are less fertile and less healthy than mosquitoes that have not been altered.
The discovery, made in the laboratory of biological control extension specialist Mark Hoddle, has been included in the latest issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of S
Evidence from fossilised embryos of worm-like creatures that lived 500 million years ago shows that embryos developed then in much the same way as their living relatives do today. The implications of this remarkable discovery, reported in this week’s issue of Nature, is that embryological processes that occur today must have been established very early on in the evolution of animals.
Because embryos are composed of tissues that decay away to nothing in an instant they are very rarely preserv
Researchers from LSU, NASA and Mexico find Mars-like conditions in a South American desert
A team of scientists from LSU, NASA, the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico and other research organizations has discovered an area of Earth that is shockingly similar to the surface of Mars.
This joint research effort has discovered clues from one of Earth’s driest deserts about the limits of life on this planet, and why past missions to Mars may have failed to detect life.
Sediment samples dating back thousands of years and taken from under the deep water of West Olaf Lake in Minnesota have revealed an unexpected climate indicator that can be factored into future projections.
In the Jan. 13 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign report that native C4 plants did not fare well during prolonged periods of severe drought that occurred in the middle Holocene (4,000 to 8,000 years a
Flowering plants are the largest group of plants and contain just about all of our food crops. Khidir Hilu’s research using rapidly evolving genes to determine the molecular evolution of flowering plants is providing new insights into plant relationships, according to the cover story article in the recently released December 2003 issue of the American Journal of Botany (Angiosperm phylogeny based on matK sequence information1).
Flowering plants include cereals such as wheat, barle
Purdue University scientists have found the glue that saltwater mussels use to affix themselves to rocks is a subject worth sticking to, both for its pure scientific interest and for its potential applications in medicine and industry.
Jonathan Wilker and his research group have discovered that the formation of mussel adhesive requires iron, a metal that has never before been found in such a biological function. While the discovery is valuable for its scientific merit, it also could impact
In many species, the reproductive cells of the germline can only form properly if certain mRNAs are prevented from translating into proteins until they have been transported to precise target locations in the egg and the appropriate developmental stage has been reached. In a study published in the January issue of Developmental Cell, members of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology (CDB) Laboratory for Germline Development (Akira Nakamura, Team Leader) report that, in the fruit fly Drosophila, t
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