Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute report
Professor Richard A. Lerner, M.D., Associate Professor Paul Wentworth, Jr., Ph.D., and a team of investigators at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) is reporting that antibodies can destroy bacteria, playing a hitherto unknown role in immune protection. Furthermore, the team found that when antibodies do this, they appear to produce the reactive gas ozone.
“[Ozone] has never been considered a part of biology before,” say
A research team of the Department of Applied Chemistry of the University of the Basque Country has been studying the reproduction of funguses. In the laboratory of Unai Ugalde, they have studied and identified a molecule that is essential in the growing of fungus.
It is already known that funguses grow in several places, but the factors that affect their growing are still unknown. Funguses grow through hypha, that is, small filamentous. However, in certain situations they produce spores tha
For the first time in the world, researchers at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, along with collaborators at the University of Oxford, Harvard University, and Michigan State University have uncovered two genetically informative molecules from a single fossil bone. In addition to the recovery of mitochondrial DNA, the complete sequencing of a bone protein, osteocalcin, makes this a major scientific breakthrough. Extending this work to additional fossils could change perceptions of evolutiona
Technology offers potential for treatment of cancer and other diseases
UCLA scientists coupled the protein that makes fireflies glow with a device similar to a home video camera to eavesdrop on cellular conversations in living mice. Reported in the Nov. 11 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, their findings may speed development of new drugs for cancer, cardiovascular diseases and neurological diseases.
Led by Dr. Sanjiv Gambhir, UCLA associ
Bacteria in space, beware. New technology to monitor and identify bacteria is in the works.
Dr. George E. Fox and Dr. Richard Willson, researchers on the National Space Biomedical Research Institute’s immunology and infection team, have developed a new technology to characterize unknown bacteria. Its immediate application will be for identifying bacteria in space, but it will eventually aid in diagnosing medical conditions and detecting biological hazards on Earth.
“Underst
Scientists have shown, for the first time, that changes in a large-scale climate system can synchronize population fluctuations in multiple mammal species across a continent-scale region. The study, to be published in the 14 November 2002 issue of the journal Nature, compares long-term data on the climate system known as the North Atlantic Oscillation with long-term data from Greenland on the population dynamics of caribou and muskoxen, which are large mammals adapted to breeding in the Arctic.
A step to further understanding of the process whereby genes are turned on and off in living organisms has been achieved by a team of researchers at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School. Understanding of this process has substantial consequences for furthering the use of medical genetic engineering to grow new tissue to replace damaged or defective organs or to halt the growth of undesirable tumors.
The achievement is described in an article in the current issue of Nature magazine
An ambitious, multi-disciplinary, 15-20 year program to fill in and flesh out the Tree of Life has just been launched by the National Science Foundation.
Field Museum scientists will help lead three of the seven grants recently awarded to researchers around the world to construct a new framework for understanding the evolutionary relationships between all species, extinct and living.
These three projects (listed below) will focus on birds, spiders, and archosaurs (birds, dinosaurs, pt
It has hitherto not been known that higher organisms, such as green algae, can communicate with bacteria. But Debra Milton, associate professor at Umeå University in Sweden, shows in the recent issue of the prominent journal Science that bacteria attract green algae with the aid of signal molecules. Surfaces under water are rapidly colonized by bacteria, which cover the surface with a thin film known as biofilm. Within this biofilm bacteria coordinate activities among the cells with the help of chem
A special place on the market of food supplements belongs to ecdysteroid-containing preparations that are helpful as a tonic for sportsmen during intensive training sessions, for people of various professions connected with physical and psychological stresses, and also for elderly people. Ecdysteroids heal wounds and burns.
A plant containing very high concentrations of ecdysteroids has been found by a team headed by Vladimir Volodin from the Institute of Biology in Syktyvkar. This is saw-w
Understanding the timed messages within cells could lead to new medical treatments
Researchers from The Johns Hopkins University and other institutions have discovered a biochemical “clock” that appears to play a crucial role in the way information is sent from the surface of a cell to its nucleus. These messages can cause the cell to thrive or commit suicide, and manipulating them could lead to new treatments for cancer and other diseases, the researchers say.
The findings,
Syracuse University researchers pick up where Darwin left off: Groundbreaking study to be published in the Nov. 8 issue of Science
When it comes to mating and determining whose sperm reaches the elusive egg, females control both the playing field and the rules of the game, according to a new study on male sperm competition vs. female choice to be published in the Nov. 8 issue of Science.
“Our study demonstrates, unambiguously, the active role females play in determining the condi
The lotus – a flowering wetland plant native to Asia – may not at first glance be of interest to the nanotechnologist. But researchers at German chemical company BASF are developing a spray-on coating that mimics the way lotus leaves repel water droplets and particles of dirt. The story is reported on nanotechweb.org, the Institute of Physics’ global portal for nanotechnology.
The leaves of Lotus plants are coated with minute wax crystals around 1 nm in diameter which repel water, droplets f
Virtually hairless, venerably wrinkled and very nearly blind, naked mole-rats — those homely rodents from underground Africa — remind some zoo-goers of little old men.
The resemblance is more than coincidence. They really are really old males — and females, too — biologists report in an article scheduled for November publication in the Journal of Zoology (Vol. 258, Part 3). Many naked mole-rats ( Heterocephalus glaber ) in laboratory colonies in the United States and South A
How do 30,000 genes in our DNA work together to form a large part of who we are? How do one hundred billion neurons operate in our brain? The huge number of factors involved makes such complex networks hard to crack. Now, a study published in the October 25 issue of Science uncovers a strategy for finding the organizing principles of virtually any network – from neural networks to ecological food webs or the Internet.
A team headed by Dr. Uri Alon, of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Mo
Scientists at the Institute for Animal Health have revealed how a tropical bacterium is able invade cells, and ultimately trigger its escape using a homemade rocket. Their work is published in the November issue of Molecular Microbiology.
A group of scientists led by Dr Ed Galyov and Dr Mark Stevens have discovered that Burkholderia pseudomallei , which causes a disease called melioidosis, uses a special set of `effector` proteins to invade host cells. Their discovery has revealed surp
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