An international team of researchers leaded by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona have found experimental evidence that the various manifestations of fear in animals are influenced by a specific place or region within the genome. The results, published in the latest edition of Genome Research, were obtained with rats, but the scientists suspect that this research will facilitate an understanding of genetic characteristics and conditioning factors related to fear in humans.
Demonstrating t
Biotech human breast milk growing but not bottled.
Genetically modified (GM) rice carrying a protein from human breast milk could be used to enhance infant formula, researchers hope. But at present, the protein would not gain approval for use in the United States.
Nutritionists agree that breast milk is best for a baby; infant formula is not as nourishing as the real thing. So for mothers unable to breast-feed, the biotech industry is engineering crops or animals to make huma
Fossil find hints at life of one of our earliest mammalian forebears.
A mouse-sized fossil from 125 million years ago is the earliest known member of the mammal group that includes humans, say researchers.
The animal is a primitive example of today’s dominant mammals. “It’s at the very root of this diverse and incredibly important group,” says palaeontologist Zhe-Xi Luo of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh 1 .
The mammal, Eomaia sc
Limp lettuce and wilting roses could be a thing of the past, following the identification of a key plant gene by University scientists. The discovery could also improve food shelf life, and help speed up reforestation programmes. Plant scientists Professor Meyer and Dr Elena Zubko have identified the plant gene which produces a specific type of hormones (cytokinins) to counteract ageing, and control shoot production. By enhancing the gene to overproduce cytokinins, they saw dramatic results: a cut pl
Early life of fetus affects organs’ future health.
Sheep stressed in early pregnancy bear lambs with stunted kidneys that predispose them to high blood pressure Australian researchers have shown. The finding adds to growing evidence that early fetal life influences adult health.
Marelyn Wintour of the University of Melbourne subjected 4-week-pregnant ewes to two stressful days by infusing them with the hormone cortisol. Their lambs developed high blood pressure at 5 months o
Microbiologists from Wageningen have discovered a strange form of digestion in an exotic microorganism. The `Rushing fireball´, Latin name Pyrococcus furiosus , has reinvented the wheel for several steps of sugar digestion.
Pyrococcus furiosus , which was discovered 15 years ago on an Italian volcanic island, digests sugar somewhat differently from humans, animals, plants and bacteria. All organisms, convert glucose into pyruvate by means of a glycolysis. Pyrococcus furiosus
The intestines of mice which have been subjected to stress, overreact to certain nutritional substances. PhD biologist Annette van Kalkeren from the University of Amsterdam has investigated the relationship between stress and the occurrence of food allergies and various intestinal disorders.
The biologist investigated the reaction of pieces of mouse intestine to egg albumin, a substance found in eggs. Just like humans, mice can become allergic to the substance. However, mice only become alle
Erasing molecular memory of parents could shed light on clones.
Cells naturally wipe out the mark of their parents in 24 hours, say cloning experts. Exactly how may begin to explain the way that animal clones and stem cells are reprogrammed. Not all genes are born equal. In mammals, some genes are imprinted – cells switch on only the copy inherited from mum or dad, not both. This sex stamp must be erased and rewritten in sperm and egg cells, however, so they are correctly labelled as
Communication, clearly essential to humans, is also essential to cells, their elemental building blocks. In order to preserve organic cohesion, cells need to communicate with their environment, but they also need to ensure adequate communication between their various compartments.
These forms of intracellular exchange are essential and require the setting up of actual networks. Membrane transport tubes were evidenced some years ago, but their formation has up till now remained a mystery.
Two cricket-like creatures establish new insect group.
The first new order of insects to be discovered for more than 80 years has emerged from the mountains of Namibia. The order’s first official members are two creatures about 2 cm long that look a bit like a cross between a cricket and a stick insect 1 .
The group, called Mantophasmatodea, joins the other 30 or so insect orders such as beetles, flies and termites. “If it was in mammals it’d be like
Chemists put biological catalysts to work in clean industrial solvents.
In a move towards cleaner chemical processing, researchers in Spain and France have worked out how to use enzymes as catalysts using two ’green’ solvents: one to dissolve the enzyme, the other to dissolve the materials it transforms.
In some industrial processes chemists have replaced polluting organic solvents, such as chlorine and benzene, with supercritical carbon dioxide. This is the liquid
Research chemists have a found a class of synthetic molecules that could quite literally act as a key which could lock away sections of DNA into a closely wound coil preventing proteins from interacting with particular sections of DNA code. By locking up the DNA in this way scientists could stop particular sequences of DNA from activating biological changes that doctors or scientists would rather avoid, or wish to regulate closely.
Until now researchers trying to devise synthetic molecules t
Invading insect empire stretches 6,000 kilometres.
An invading empire has conquered Europe. One super-colony of South American ants, with millions of nests and billions of individuals, stretches 6,000 kilometres around the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts, researchers have found.
Every ant in the colony treats every other as its nest-mate – even though they may be quite unrelated. The nests have buried their differences to create the largest cooperative unit ever discovered
Blood vessel prostheses work best when the biochemical and mechanical properties match reality as much as possible and when they are made of biodegradable material. To this end tissue technologists grow natural vascular wall cells, endothelial cells, in a biodegradable tube made of collagen. According to Professor István Vermes tissue technologists are overly concerned with developing stem cells, necessary to build blood vessels, and not enough with the development of the vascular skeleton or scaffo
In the city, frogs do not feel as comfortable as in the wild nature because of dirty water, a lack of food, and dangers at every turn. That is why the life of frogs in urban areas is shorter. However, they do not leave these habitats, but adapt to them. Apparently, there are two ways to adapt: either become more tolerant or increase the number of progeny.
Every spring from 1998 to 2001, Elena A. Severtseva and her colleagues from the Biological Faculty of the Moscow State University
A crayfish’s urine scares off its enemies.
A well-timed blast of urine is the key to winning a crayfish fight, say researchers. The chemical aggression intimidates opponents into backing down.
Ecologist Thomas Breithaupt injected freshwater crayfish with a dye that made their urine glow green. He and his colleague Petra Eger staged fights between blindfolded crayfish ( Astacus leptodactylus ), to replicate the animals’ nocturnal habits1.
The eventual
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