Full development of the sense of smell in mammals is dependent on functional activity during critical periods in development, according to a study by researchers at Yale, Rockefeller and Columbia Universities and published in the journal, Science.

In mammals, the connection between odor and the brain occurs over a single nerve connection. The olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) that have the same odorant receptor (OR) are directed to regions of the olfactory bulb, where they coalesce into a si

Targeting a master molecule that helps cancer cells survive when blood oxygen levels are low may offer a potentially powerful strategy for blocking tumor growth, say researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

The molecule, “hypoxia-inducible factor 1,” or HIF-1, controls production of a number of other proteins, such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which work in concert to help nurture these stressed cancer cells. Researchers show that genetically jam

Even after a century of research, the workings of brain cells remain somewhat mysterious. But USC scientists have uncovered new clues into how neurons process information

Researchers from USC and the Technion Medical School in Israel have uncovered new clues into the mystery of the brain’s ultra-complicated cells known as neurons.

Their findings — appearing in this month’s issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience — contradict a widely accepted idea regarding the “arithmetic”

’It’s a war inside a tree hole’

If you think your place is a dump, try living in a tree hole: a dark flooded crevice with years of accumulated decomposing leaves and bugs, infested with bacteria, other microbes, and crawling with insect larvae.

A biologist at Washington University in St. Louis has studied the ecosystem of the tree hole and the impact that three factors – predation, resources and disturbance — have on species diversity.

Jamie Kneite

A discovery by a University of California, San Diego biologist that some species of bees exploit chemical clues left by other bee species to guide their kin to food provides evidence that eavesdropping may be an evolutionary driving force behind some bees’ ability to conceal communication inside the hive, using a form of animal language to encode food location.

Bees can use two main forms of communication to tell their hive mates where to find food: abstract representations such as sounds o

UCSF scientists have identified a protein on T cells of the immune system that triggers type 1 diabetes in mice when it interacts with another protein in the pancreas. They have shown that blocking the interaction prevents development of diabetes without weakening normal immune defenses or causing measurable side effects. The success provides a promising strategy against human type 1 diabetes, since the T cell protein has a counterpart in the human immune system, the scientists say.

The rese

A new study has found a possible mechanism for tamoxifen resistance in breast cancer and provides evidence that another cancer drug–gefitinib (Iressa)–may be able to restore tamoxifen’s anticancer activity. The study appears in the June 16 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Although adjuvant tamoxifen can reduce the risk of death for women with invasive breast cancer by about 15% over 10 to 15 years, many women do not receive any benefit from the drug. Even among

A team led by University of California San Diego neurobiologists has developed a new approach to interpreting brain electroencephalograms, or EEGs, that provides an unprecedented view of thought in action and has the potential to advance our understanding of disorders like epilepsy and autism.

The new information processing and visualization methods that make it possible to follow activation in different areas of the brain dynamically are detailed in a paper featured on the cover of the June

Nearly 150 years after Darwin published On the Origin of Species, biologists are still debating how new species emerge from old–and even the definition of species itself. Darwin demurred from offering a hard and fast definition, suggesting that such a thing was “undiscoverable.”

In this issue of PLoS Biology, Daniel Barbash and colleagues identify a true speciation gene in the fruitfly Drosophila.

One of the more enduring definitions characterizes organisms as distinct reproducti

Implications for tissue regeneration, birth defects and heart disease

In early development, how do cells know to put the right spacing between ribs, fingers and toes? How do they communicate with each other to form symmetrical and repeated patterns such as zebra stripes or leopard spots?

For the first time, UCLA researchers have recreated the ability of mammalian cells to self-organize, forming evenly spaced patterns in a test tube. Published in the June 22, 2004 issue of the

A new research study published in the June issue of Cancer Cell identifies the molecular events that contribute to a notoriously treatment-resistant form of T cell leukemia.

The findings reveal that disruption of immune cell differentiation is central to disease progression and provide new avenues for development of future therapeutics.

T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) accounts for 10%-15% of pediatric and 25% of adult ALL cases. A gene called TAL1/SCL is frequently act

Mounting evidence suggests that ecological and climatic conditions influence the emergence, spread, and recurrence of infectious diseases. Global climate change is likely to aggravate climate-sensitive diseases in unpredictable ways.

Increasingly, public health programs aimed at preventing and controlling disease outbreaks are considering aspects of the ecology of infectious diseases–how hosts, vectors, and parasites interact with each other and their environment. The hope is that by under

Your doctor may soon be able to check on your recovery after a hospital stay by texting your mobile phone. Researchers, writing in BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making today, have developed and tested a wireless patient monitoring system that could help detect patient suffering at a distance.

Keeping up-to-date with a patient’s condition once they have left hospital can help doctors to “detect patient suffering earlier and to activate a well-timed intervention”.

Researc

Liver cirrhosis is approximately the 12th leading cause of death in the United States.
Roughly half of these deaths may be from alcohol use and/or abuse.
New findings indicate that how and when drinkers consume alcohol may be as important as the amount consumed.
Effects may also vary by gender. Liver disease was the 12th leading cause of death in the United States in the year 2001, accounting for roughly 27,000 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Co

An MIT team has developed new technology that could jump-start scientists’ ability to create specific cell types from human embryonic stem cells, a feat with implications for developing replacement organs and a variety of other tissue engineering applications.

The scientists have already identified a simple method for producing substantially pure populations of epithelial-like cells from human embryonic stem cells. Epithelial cells could be useful in making synthetic skin.

Hu

In a report recently published in the Lancet, physicians at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) have described a new way to preserve the fertility of women who must undergo chemotherapy. This method, which can be done quickly, does not involve surgery or hormonal stimulation of the ovaries. “Our technique of removing immature eggs from the woman’s ovaries, then maturing them by a technique called in-vitro maturation (IVM), has been successfully used for eight female cancer patien