A study by two North Carolina State University geneticists traces the origin and evolution of a genetic mutation that long ago led to the creation of a type of rice known as glutinous, or “sticky,” rice.

The molecular genetic research leads researchers to believe that glutinous rice – which differs from non-glutinous, or common, rice on account of a mutation in its Waxy gene that suppresses the formation of a starch called amylose – most likely originated a single time in Southeast Asia. Fu

A new generation of realistic models of the human body could give radiation scientists and medical workers a better view of how exposure to radiation affects different internal organs. These so-called “voxel phantoms” offer a new way to reveal the effects of radioactive particles that have been ingested or breathed in or otherwise entered the body. (The word “voxel” means volume element and is the three-dimensional equivalent of pixel).

Maria Zankl of the Institute of Radiation Protection in

Penn State engineers have developed a prototype for an ultrasound insulin delivery system that is about the size and weight of a matchbook that can be worn as a patch on the body.

Dr. Nadine Barrie Smith, assistant professor of bioengineering, says, “The new Penn State ultrasound patch, which operates in the same frequency range as the large commercially available sonic drug delivery devices, is about an inch-and-a-half by an inch-and-a-half in size and weighs less than an ounce. Commerciall

Non-high density lipoprotein cholesterol (non-HDL-C) may help predict heart problems in people who have heart disease, according to a report in today’s Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Reducing low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol has long been the goal of medications and other cholesterol-lowering treatments. But researchers are finding that other lipoproteins appear to be involved in developing heart disease. These include some very low-density lipop

Researchers have developed a new way to use a decade-old imaging method to directly compare the brains of monkeys with those of humans. Their report appeared in the journal Science.

The method uses functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) – a technique that measures blood volume and flow and blood-oxygen levels in the brain. It also provides an indirect measure of neuronal activity in different regions of the brain.

Neurons need oxygen and glucose to work. Blood carries

Structural studies of a key enzyme have revealed how dangerous strains of the bacterium, Staphylococcus aureus , become resistant to antibiotics.

Resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus , which are also called “hospital staph” because of their prevalence in hospitals, constitute 34 percent of the clinical isolates in the United States, more than 60 percent in Japan, Singapore and Taiwan, and more than 50 percent in Italy and Portugal. And the emergence of strains of

A new company is helping to solve a 20-year problem in the chemicals industry.
Enviresearch, a Newcastle University ‘spin-out’, uses computer models to determine whether chemicals are environmentally friendly.

The British Government demands that chemicals undergo a rigorous testing programme, including an ‘environmental risk assessment’, before it is satisfied a substance is safe. Only then will it grant a sales licence for the UK and Europe.

Due to these strict regulations,

Sexual reproduction has many advantages — some most pleasurable — and probably leads to the long-term survival of the species concerned. During the formation of reproductive cells or gametes, sexual reproduction is accompanied by an exchange of genes between the two chromosomes inherited from the parents. Each individual arising from these gametes thus receives a veritable mosaic of parental and grandparental characteristics, and so at one and the same time resembles and differs from the parents.

People who find it hard to lose all the weight they want or that their doctors recommend should take heart, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill scientist says. New research suggests that losing even modest amounts of weight can pay off in better health.

The study showed for the first time that shedding excess pounds decreases activity of a key enzyme known to play a central role in high blood pressure, said Dr. Joyce Harp, associate professor of nutrition and medicine at the UNC s

When we feel pain in response to harmful stimuli it is the result of messages sent from pain sensors in the periphery of the body to the brain. These pain sensors – or nociceptors – often lie beneath the skin and detect and signal the presence of tissue-damaging stimuli or the existence of tissue damage. One particular nociceptor, vanilloid receptor-1 (VR1), relays sensory messages to the brain in response to thermal and painful chemical stimuli and is generally regarded as the major pain sensor.

Blood from human umbilical cords is a rich source of hematopoeitic stem cells, the progenitors that can reconstitute all of the different cell types in our blood, including oxygen-carrying red blood cells and white blood cells that are our major defense against infections. Cord blood contains a higher percentage of stem cells than adult bone marrow (another source of blood stem cells), and has several additional advantages: cord blood stem cells divide faster than stem cells from bone marrow and have

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have developed several drug candidates that show promise in animal studies in protecting the brain against sudden damage from stroke, with the potential for fighting chronic neurodegenerative conditions like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. The drugs, called p53 inhibitors, attack a key protein involved in nerve cell death and represent a new strategy for preserving brain function following sudden injury or chronic disease, according to t

The incidence of gastrointestinal stromal tumours (GISTs), generally considered a rare sarcoma, is more than three times as high as previously believed, according to data presented in Nice at the 27th annual European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress. An accurate estimate of GIST incidence has been elusive because of diagnostic ambiguities, now largely resolved by modern immunohistochemistry.

The higher incidence of GIST – calculated at 16 per 1,000,000 people annually – is especi

Low levels of folic acid in plasma have been associated with an increased risk of miscarriage in a study published in Journal of the American Medical Association lately. On the other hand, no connection was found between high levels of folic acid and increased risk of miscarriage.

In the US folic acid is added to flour to prevent pregnant women from developing a deficit of folic acid. Previous studies have shown that both deficits and surpluses of folic acid can heighten the risk of miscarri

For years, the comparison of simulated and experimental protein folding kinetics has been a “Holy Grail” for biologists and chemists. But scientists seeking to confirm protein-folding theory with laboratory experiments have been unable to cross the microsecond barrier. This obstacle in time existed because experiments could not be performed fast enough, nor simulations run long enough, to permit a direct comparison.

Now, measurements from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and m

First line chemotherapy containing Taxol is an independent predictive factor for survival

New data presented for the first time today adds to existing evidence that Taxol? offers women with metastatic breast cancer (MBC) a 31% improvement in overall survival compared to standard treatment and a 33% chance of improved progression free survival, the largest improvements ever seen. The data collected from 640 patients treated in a consecutive series of studies between 1994 and 2001 als