Biologists unravel part of the mystery behind disappearance of shell material

Chitin, the Earth’s second-most abundant biological material, is a major component in the flurry of skeletal debris discarded daily by crustacean creatures in the world’s oceans. If left undisturbed, this tough insoluble material, a cousin to cellulose, would pile up on the ocean’s floor and wreak havoc with marine ecosystems. Fortunately, armies of bacteria act as chitin’s cleanup crew,

A condition linked to heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity

For over a decade, scientists have known that insulin resistance – a syndrome where the body does not respond as well as it should to insulin – is linked to the development of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity and polycystic ovary syndrome. In fact, one in four adult Americans has insulin resistance, with Mexican Americans having the highest prevalence. But because people with insulin

In what is believed to be the first success of its kind, researchers at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M University have cloned a white-tailed deer. A fawn, named “Dewey,” after Duane Kraemer, one of the researchers, was born to a surrogate mother several months ago.

The fawn is believed to be the first successfully cloned deer and Texas A&M is the first academic institution in the world to have cloned five different species. Previously, researchers at the College of Veterina

When introduced to the world in 1998, human embryonic stem cells were considered heralds of a new age of transplant medicine. The prospect of an unlimited supply of cells and tissue of all kinds to treat disease captured public imagination and enthusiasm.

But lost in the glitz of the cells’ potential to treat an array of devastating and sometimes fatal diseases was another quality that, when all is said and done, could match even the prospect of remaking transplant technology.

A group of researchers from The Scripps Research Institute has identified a small synthetic molecule that can induce a cell to undergo dedifferentiation – to move backwards developmentally from its current state to form its own precursor cell.
This compound, named reversine, causes cells which are normally programmed to form muscles to undergo reverse differentiation – retreat along their differentiation pathway and turn into precursor cells.

These precursor cells are multipotent; that

New research finds that deficiencies in the hippocampus play a key role in alcoholism-related Korsakoff’s syndrome, a memory disorder. The deficiencies are comparable to those found in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study published in the December 23 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Researchers used MRI to compare the brains of five men with alcoholic Korsakoff’s syndrome to 20 men with Alzheimer’s disease

A compound extracted from garlic is effective against even the most antibiotic-resistant strains of MRSA, the killer ‘hospital superbug’, and can cure patients with MRSA-infected wounds within weeks, according to new research by microbiologist Dr Ron Cutler of the University of East London (UEL).

In a paper to be published in the New Year, Dr Cutler, an expert in the antimicrobial properties of plant extracts, claims that allicin – a compound that occurs naturally in garlic – kills not only

Australian scientists have invented a simple device that is ready to help thousands of premature babies in third-world countries who suffer from respiratory difficulties – problems that can cause brain damage and blindness.

Dr Kurt Liffman of CSIRO Biomedical Devices says, “The Oxymix device is a simple, compact and inexpensive device to mix oxygen and atmospheric air”.

“The Oxymix was originally conceived for use in developing countries where hospitals have access to medical-grade

Fruits and vegetables are good for overall health, and a newly funded study at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) may show that certain vegetables, such as broccoli, also offer protection against prostate cancer.

UPCI researcher Shivendra Singh, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology and urology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, has received a $1.7 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to study prostate cancer prevention by phytochemicals found in br

Size matters, and colder temperatures make things bigger! This is true not just for most large furry animals and for birds, but also for the microscopic plants and animals that are at the base of the ocean’s food chain.

Scientists have long known that animals and plants are usually larger when they grow in colder environments. Now, for the first time David Atkinson, Ben Ciotti, and David Montagnes, from the University of Liverpool’s School of Biological Sciences, have found that this o

Biologists from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research have demonstrated that desert dust promotes the growth of algae. Scientists had already assumed that the iron in desert dust stimulated algal growth, but this has now been demonstrated for the first time. The researchers have published their findings in the December issue of the Journal of Phycology.

The biologists cultured two species of diatoms in seawater originating from the iron-depleted Southern Ocean, the sea around the

This year, Roderick MacKinnon was recognized for working out the atomic structure of an ion channel and Peter Agre for discovering that a major protein found in red blood cells functions primarily as a water channel. Agre went on to establish the family of related channels, which he named “aquaporins.” Solving the structure of these channels provided a platform for exploring the underlying molecular mechanisms that allow the proteins to function as filters and maintain osmotic equilibrium. Robert Str

While the controversy surrounding the ethics of stem cell research shows no signs of abating, scientists continue to demonstrate the promise of stem cell–derived therapies for a wide range of degenerative diseases. The hope is that stem cells, which retain a unique “pluripotent” ability to morph into any of the 200 cell types of the human body, could be used to repair or replace damaged or diseased tissue. However, little is known about the molecular events that trigger this differentiation of stem c

Bacteria with resistance to multiple antibiotics will become more common in intensive care units unless hospitals improve their hygiene standards. Research published in Critical Care this week shows that there is an “unexpectedly high”level of transmission of bacteria between intensive care patients. Intensive care patients are especially vulnerable to picking up infections in hospital, due to their poor health. Researchers from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden found that 70% of intensive

Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers have discovered a surprisingly straightforward mechanism that causes prostate cancer cells to develop resistance to cancer-fighting drugs. The studies also point to specific ways to improve drugs to prevent the problem of drug resistance in prostate tumors.

The researchers describe the molecular mechanism of resistance to anti-androgen therapy for prostate cancer in an advance online publication in the December 21, 2003, issue of the journal

“It’s all just part of getting old” may not be enough to explain the health problems that elderly people suffer, according to two Dutch researchers, writing in BMC Geriatrics this week. They think that the infirmities associated with old age are symptoms of diseases contracted during life. When doctors consider how to treat elderly patients, they are likely to think, ’is this patient ill, or just old? Can their complaints be explained by the “normal ageing process” or does the pati