Researchers at Georgetown University have developed a novel technology to precisely measure the sensitivity of nerve fibers that wire up the brain during development. Through use of this technology, they discovered that these fibers, or axons, possess an incredible sensitivity to molecular guidance cues that direct the axon’s route to its desired destination in the brain. Their findings are described in the June issue of Nature Neuroscience.

Similar to connecting your PC, monitor, mouse an

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill scientists have discovered a protein in the cell wall of parasites that’s crucial to the molecular mechanism allowing them to move between cells, survive and cause disease.

The discovery was made in Toxoplasma gondii, an organism that can cause blindness and brain damage in people with an impaired immune system and can cause severe disease in first trimester fetuses. In addition, the organism is used as a model experimental system for s

Tape-recorders allow us to record and analyze birds’ singing, but communicating with birds is more difficult

From time immemorial, people have listened to the birds singing, recognized birds by voices, have been able to guess their condition. Some people are able to successfully imitate bird’s singing. Only in the 50s of the last century, researchers managed to put the matter on a strictly scientific basis, when the tape equipment became available. Researchers started to record birds’

Thanks to biophysicists, statistics has reached the most intimate aspect of life – regulation of genes’ activity. Investigation on probabilistic aspects of molecular biology has been supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the INTAS Foundation.

Regulation of genes’ activity is one of the most important biological problems which has not been solved so far. A cell switches on and off its genes through multiple factors, which, if required, interact with certain sections of a

Men don’t recognize their disease until a late stage

The rate of male breast cancer is on the rise and the disease in men is usually detected when the tumors are bigger, have spread and may be more aggressive, compared to diagnosis of the disease in women, concludes the largest study ever conducted of male breast cancer.

The findings, published today in the online edition CANCER and will appear in the July 1 print issue of the publication, suggest both that breast cance

Research proves that use of antibacterial detergents in the home and in hospitals can reduce the development of superbugs, according to an article published in the May 2004 issue of Microbiology Today, the quarterly magazine for the Society for General Microbiology. Using antibacterial products, including disinfectants and antiseptics, has been found to lessen the chance of infection and as a result cut down on the use of antibiotics.

Modern over-use of antibacterial soaps and cleaners to co

Scientists have demonstrated the importance of programmed cell death in preventing inbreeding in plants, according to research published in Nature today. Researchers at the University of Birmingham School of Biosciences have found that self-incompatibility, an important mechanism in plants that prevents them fertilizing themselves with their own pollen, which is genetically controlled by products of the S locus, triggers programmed cell death in incompatible pollen coming into contact with the stigma

Amyloid fibers, those clumps of plaque-like proteins that clog up the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, have perplexed scientists with their robust structures. In laboratory experiments, they are able to withstand extreme heat and cold and powerful detergents that cripple most other proteins. The fibers are in fact so tough that researchers now are exploring ways that they can be used in nanoscale industrial applications. While they are not necessarily the cause of Alzheimer’s, they are assoc

Scientists have found that living cells will sometimes “shoot the messenger” as a way to halt production of certain proteins

The study, published in the May 21 issue of the journal Molecular Cell, shows that cells sometimes destroy the chemical messages that contain information for making proteins even as the messages are being “read.” The work was done by scientists at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Resea

Male bullfrogs communicate with other bullfrogs through calls made up of a series of croaks, some of which contain stutters, according to a new Brown University study which describes a pattern not previously identified in scientific literature.

Researchers recorded 2,536 calls from 32 male bullfrogs in natural chorus and analyzed the number of croaks in each call and the number of stutters in each croak. It is known that the male bullfrog’s call attracts females for mating, maintains territo

Brown University researchers have found that there are multiple independent ways to stop cell division, a phenomenon that prevents the spread of genetic mutation, which can make cells cancerous. Results of this research, along with an accompanying editorial, were published in the current issue of the journal Molecular Cell.

The findings will be of interest to scientists who are developing new-generation drugs that target cancer at the molecular level, according to John Sedivy, principal inve

Scientists will have a new view of how the AIDS virus (HIV) enters a target cell and begins its process of infection, thanks to a technique created by researchers at the Salk Institute.

The technique allows scientists to observe for the first time the steps taken by viruses like HIV after they enter a cell. The study was done with a chicken virus that was modified to contain the genes of HIV. Both the chicken virus and HIV are retroviruses, which means their genomes are made from RNA rather

Many flowering plants prevent inbreeding and increase genetic diversity by a process called self-incompatibility, in which pollination fails to set seed if the pollen is identified as its own by the pistil. A research team, led by Teh-hui Kao, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Penn State, has announced, in a paper published in the May 20 issue of Nature, the discovery of a gene of petunias that controls pollen function in self-incompatibility. This discovery completes a critical miss

Bacteria could be the new weapon in the fight against drug trafficking, according to an article published in the May 2004 issue of Microbiology Today, the quarterly magazine for the Society for General Microbiology. Researchers at CNAP, University of York, have found bacteria that grow on heroin and morphine and believe that two special proteins from these bugs could be used to detect heroin.

“This is hugely important”, explains Professor Neil Bruce of CNAP, “since the need for a rapid, hand

Scientists from Duke University Medical Center have identified the “master switch” that cancer cells use to dispatch protective messages to nearby blood vessels, fortifying the vessels against deadly onslaughts of radiation.

The messages enable blood vessels to survive and ultimately nourish any remaining cancer cells that escape toxic radiation therapy.

Radiation biologists from the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center identified the master switch as a protein called “Hypoxia Inducib

Adding stereotactic radiosurgery – which entails delivering radiation to specific points in the brain while sparing normal tissue – after whole brain radiation therapy helps certain patients with cancer that has spread to the brain live longer, says a new study by researchers at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.

In as many as one-third of all patients with lung and breast cancers, the disease spreads, or metastasizes, to the brain, leaving few good options. The disease c