At the Hubrecht Laboratory in Utrecht, the biologist Sylvia Fischer has discovered how organisms protect themselves against transposons. Transposons are pieces of DNA which can translocate themselves within the genome. Sometimes transposons cause damage to the DNA. Plants probably have a similar mechanism which protects them against viruses.

Biologists from Utrecht discovered that the nematode C. elegans keeps transposons in check with a sophisticated mechanism. Due to the mechanism, the tra

Protein movement can be simulated three times as fast than had been thought possible up to now. Researchers from Groningen achieved the gain in speed by leaving out the calculations concerning hydrogen atoms. Meanwhile research groups around the world are adapting their simulation programs.

Up until now researchers calculated all of the positions of atoms in a protein molecule after two femtoseconds. A femtosecond is one millionth of a billionth of a second. The research from Groningen revea

Primates found in Brazil’s Amazon rain forest

Conservation International announced today the discovery of two new species of titi monkey in Brazil’s Amazon rain forest. The findings are published in a just-released special supplement to the journal Neotropical Primates.

They were described by Marc van Roosmalen, a primatologist at Brazil’s National Institute for Amazon Research (INPA), his son, Tomas van Roosmalen, and Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation Internat

“Friendly” bacteria (probiotics) given to babies during weaning may help alleviate the symptoms of eczema, suggests research in Gut.

The researchers studied 21 infants who already had evidence of atopic (allergic) eczema, and were at heightened risk for chronic allergic disease.

When the babies were weaned onto hydrolysed whey formula feed, eight of them reacted adversely to it. Among the remaining 13, seven were fed the formula supplemented with probiotic bacteria – Bifidobacte

Alcohol is unlikely to protect drinkers from the risk of developing adult onset (type II) diabetes, concludes research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Alcohol seems to confer only a slight advantage in moderate drinkers, the research shows.

To date, the effects of light to moderate alcohol consumption on the risk of developing adult onset diabetes remain unclear.

The researchers monitored over 5000 men between the ages of 40 and 59 for almost 17 years. None of t

Researchers have discovered a possible added benefit of hormone replacement therapy: saving teeth.

Postmenopausal women who took a daily dose of estrogen along with calcium, vitamin D and regular dental check-ups improved the condition of their jaw, which could potentially reduce the risk of tooth loss. Women who had regular check-ups but took only calcium and vitamin D also improved jaw mass and density, though to a significantly lesser extent than those who received estrogen.

Researchers at the University of Toronto and Mount Sinai Hospital have identified a protein that plays a critical role in the regulation of “natural killers cells” in the immune system’s battle against foreign and diseased cells.

“Our research is a small part of the larger problem of how viruses and diseased cells ravage the body and circumvent our immune system,” says Kathleen Binns, a U of T doctoral student in medical genetics and microbiology and an author on a paper in the June 20

Babywalkers are associated with significant delay in achieving normal locomotor milestones in infants, such as crawling, standing, and walking, and should be discouraged, concludes a study in this week’s BMJ.

Researchers in Ireland surveyed parents of 190 normal healthy infants (83 boys and 107 girls), born at term and attending registered day care centres. They asked parents to record the age at which their child reached various developmental milestones including rolling over, sitting alone

A Swedish study in this week’s issue of THE LANCET confirms that people admitted to hospital with an acute heart attack are at an increased risk of having undiagnosed diabetes or increased glucose intolerance. Findings of the new study suggest that the fasting glucose of patients or high glucose concentrations immediately after heart attack could be a marker of patients at high risk of subsequent cardiovascular disease.

People with diabetes who have myocardial infarction (heart attack) are

Denied sugar, bingeing rats suffered withdrawal

It’s a common refrain: “I’m addicted to sugar.” Now a study by Princeton University psychologists suggests that such urges really may be a form of addiction, sharing some of the physiological characteristics of drug dependence.

Although the term “sugar addiction” often appears in magazines and on television, scientists had not demonstrated that such a thing as sugar dependency really exists, said neuroscientist Bart H

Long-term use of AndroGel®, a transdermal testosterone replacement gel, is safe and effective in men with low testosterone up to 42 months

A Phase 3 study conducted at multiple research centers in the U.S. under the direction of Ronald Swerdloff, MD, Principal Investigator at the Research and Education Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (REI) shows that long-term use of AndroGel®, a transdermal testosterone replacement gel, is safe and effective in men with low testosterone.

A lot of diseases are known to the medical science, each of the diseases having its own symptoms. Nevertheless, all diseases have something in common, regardless of the illness cause and the patients` individual reactions. These generalised regularities inherent in all diseases are called general pathology. Physicians can easily recognise anatomical and physiological abnormalities, but some symptoms are not evident. These abnormalities appear to be a presage of a disease, and after the recovery they

A newly established national biomedical center at Cornell University is reporting its first major advance: a new way of measuring, or “visualizing,” proteins. The new technique will hasten the transformation of the human genome project’s blueprints of life into a comprehensive view of the biochemical and physiological circuitry that interconnect to form entire organisms.

The technique, which determines the structure of a protein by measuring the distances between atoms in the molecule at g

A short course of hormone therapy appears to increase older men’s strength and may help seniors continue their everyday activities throughout the aging process, according to a study released today at the Endocrine Society’s 84th Annual Meeting.

Men over age 60 who took the androgen oxandrolone daily for 12 weeks had significantly stronger muscles in their upper and lower body than men who took a placebo, according to E. Todd Schroeder, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow in the Department

A Medical College of Georgia researcher is tracing the pathway that leads people with hypertension to kidney damage and possible kidney destruction.

He’s found a key vasodilator that is degraded in hypertension and the potential for developing drugs that prevent organ damage in these patients.

“In every form of hypertension, except pulmonary hypertension, which is limited to the lungs, there is a change in kidney function so the kidneys cannot excrete the proper amount of sal

Patterns of genes that are active in tumor cells can predict whether patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) are likely to be cured by chemotherapy, scientists reported today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers analyzed thousands of genes in lymphoma biopsy samples from patients with DLBCL and determined that the activity of as few as 17 genes could be used to predict patients’ response to treatment. “We’re able to reliably predict the survival of these patients