A finding on how immune cells "decide" to become active or inactive may have applications in fighting cancerous tumors, autoimmune diseases, and organ transplant rejection.
One of the last remaining New England whaling ships has provided unexpected insights into the origin of halogenated organic compounds (HOCs) that have chemical and physical properties similar to toxic PCBs and the pesticide DDT. HOCs are found everywhere and degrade slowly, but some are naturally produced and others are produced by humans.
The smallest collection of genes ever found for a cellular organism comes from tiny symbiotic bacteria that live inside special cells inside a small insect. Just 182 genes, the 160-kilobase genome could revise ideas about what's needed for a cell to work. The finding also provides new insight into bacterial evolution.
Fossilized embryos predating the Cambrian Explosion by 10 million years provide evidence that early animals had already begun to adopt some of the structures and processes seen in today's embryos, say researchers from Indiana University Bloomington and nine other institutions in this week's Science.
Scientists have found new evidence that the Bering Strait near Alaska flooded into the Arctic Ocean about 11,000 years ago, about 1,000 years earlier than widely believed, closing off the land bridge thought to be the major route for human migration from Asia to the Americas.
Researchers have deciphered the 3D structure of insulin-degrading enzyme, a promising target for new drugs because it breaks down not only insulin but also the amyloid-beta protein, which has been linked to the cognitive decline of Alzheimer's disease. The finding is exciting because it suggests ways to speed up this ubiquitous enzyme's activity by as much as 40-fold.
Sandia researchers are working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), University of Cincinnati and Argonne National Laboratory to develop contaminant warning systems that can monitor municipal water systems to determine quickly when and where a contamination occurs.
Immigrants from Eurasia are not welcome in the United States, at least when talking about the invasive plant species leafy spurge. This noxious weed alone costs producers and taxpayers an estimated $144 million a year in just the four states of Montana, Wyoming, and North and South Dakota. A special suite of nine studies about leafy spurge and its management are published in the latest issue of Rangeland Ecology & Management.
The theory that animals die when they've expended their lifetime allotment of energy may be reaching the end of its own life, but the longitudinal study leaves open a newer form of the theory -- that antioxidants help prolong life by limiting the damage that oxidative stress can cause to cells.
The long-lived naked mole-rat shows much higher levels of oxidative stress and damage and less robust repair mechanisms than the short-lived mouse, findings that could change the oxidative stress theory of aging. The new study will be presented at The American Physiological Society conference, Comparative Physiology 2006: Integrating Diversity.
The human brain relies on eye movements to identify partially obscured or moving objects, report researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in a forthcoming issue of Nature Neuroscience.
The right mix of trees can improve a city's air quality, according to researchers at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.
Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development researchers have identified a protein that encourages two or more cells to fuse into a single giant cell with multiple nuclei. The findings, published this week in the journal Developmental Cell, could lead to the ability to "fix" damaged or diseased cells in the body by fusing them with therapeutic cells.
Cornell researchers have extended a powerful technique to increase by fourfold the size of a protein that can be analyzed, to those containing more than 2,000 amino acids, up from about 500.
With the genomes of hundreds of organisms now catalogued, one of the next major challenges is to identify proteins and their interactions. The current issue of CSH Protocols, just released online, features two freely available, cutting-edge methods that address this challenge.
University of Chicago physicists have discovered a new class of behavior in air bubbles rising from an underwater nozzle. In this surprising behavior, the bubbles tear apart in sharp jerks instead of pinching off at a point, the research team will report in the Oct. 6 Physical Review Letters.
Researchers at Purdue University have created a mathematical simulation that could be used in a new national strategy to ease airport congestion and improve the overall transportation system.
A team of scientists has completed a study that explains why the tropics are so much richer in biodiversity than higher latitudes. And they say that their work highlights the importance of preserving those species against extinction.
Brain formation involves the carefully timed production of different types of nerve cells; making too much of one type and too little of another at a given time could lead to brain malformations. In the Oct. 6 issue of Cell, researchers report a mechanism that influences this timing, with possible implications for Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, autism and other diseases.
In the history of life on earth, one intriguing mystery is how plants made the transition from water to land and then went on to diversify into the array of vegetation we see today, from simple mosses and liverworts to towering redwoods.
Sudden decreases in temperature over Greenland and tropical rainfall patterns during the last Ice Age have been linked for the first time to rapid changes in the salinity of the north Atlantic Ocean, according to research published Oct. 5, 2006, in the journal Nature.
Phone call to USDA Forest Products Lab rekindles their interest in wood propellers.
In an ongoing bid to grow more corn, farmers in the U.S. Corn Belt are planting seeds much earlier today than they did 30 years ago, a new study has found.
University of Maryland-led research team answers mystery of how ultra high speed electrons, which are produced by solar flares and magnetospheric storms, get their high energy.
Supercomputer simulations by Sandia researchers have significantly altered the theoretical diagram universally used by scientists to understand the characteristics of water at extreme temperatures and pressures. The new computational model also expands the known range of water's electrical conductivity.
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine have discovered a unique evolutionary link between the most primitive innate form of immune defense, which has survived in fish, to the more advanced, adaptive immune response present in humans and other mammals.
Lee Goldstein of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School will describe dramatic new developments in the technology during a plenary talk at Frontiers in Optics, the annual meeting of the Optical Society of America (OSA) in Rochester, N.Y., which takes place next week.
Manganese, in trace amounts, is essential to human health. Now a research team from the University of Delaware, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the University of Hawaii and Oregon Health and Science University has discovered that a dissolved form of the mineral also is important in waterways such as the Black Sea and Chesapeake Bay, where it can keep toxic hydrogen sulfide zones in check.
New studies are showing the scientific and clinical promise of both psychedelic drugs and self-hypnosis. Potential benefits include promoting long-lasting psychological well-being as well as possibly countering obsessive-compulsive disorder and addictions. Improved processes in these scientific studies are enabling better research and building the respectability of experiments that began in a flawed fashion in the 1950's and 1960's.
McGill University study shows women become aroused as quickly as men. It is the first time ever that researchers have used the latest technology in thermography (infrared cameras).
The most detailed inventory yet of Salmonella proteins teases out how bacteria invade immune cells while evading detection"”and presents a promising target for new drugs, vaccines and rapid diagnostics
Robot surgeons promise to save lives in remote communities, war zones, and disaster-stricken areas.
The majestic live oak is losing its battle for survival to suburban sprawl and the encroachment of taller trees, a new University of Florida study finds.
Voting for the world's greatest moments in materials science and engineering history has begun via an online survey at http://www.materialmoments.org/survey.html, developed by JOM, the journal of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS).
Investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have discovered that a protein called ABCB6 plays a central role in production of a molecule that is key to the ability of red blood cells to carry oxygen, of liver cells to break down toxins, and of cells to extract energy from nutrients.
For the first time, scientists have demonstrated a laser-like transfer of energy "” without the laser light "” to an electron beam. The technique developed at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology produces accelerated particles that could have future applications in fields as diverse as medicine and probing the fundamental structure of matter.
Researchers have determined that airbags and antilock braking systems do not reduce the likelihood of accidents or injuries because they may encourage more aggressive driving, thwarting the potential benefits of such safety features.
Kevin Shinners wants farmers to put less energy into harvesting and handling biofuel crops - less fuel, less time and less labor. As a field machinery specialist, Shinners has worked to improve the efficiency of harvesting forage for animals. Harvesting biomass crops poses similar challenges, he says.
Mixing up a batch of ethanol from alfalfa or switchgrass isn't nearly as efficient as creating it from corn, but that doesn't mean growing grass crops for fuel won't pay, says Paul Weimer.
1) New drug for allergies?; 2) Legally high; 3) Embryo tests give parents the choice; 4) Ocean subs; 5) The boss is watching every click...
An analysis of mice infected with the reconstructed 1918 influenza virus has revealed that although the infection triggered a very strong immune system response, the response failed to protect the animals from severe lung disease and death.
Transfer of a gene that produces a mutant form of good cholesterol provides significantly better anti-plaque and anti-inflammation benefits than therapy using the "normal" HDL gene, according to a mouse study conducted by cardiology researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and reported in the Oct. 3 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
A minor solar flare in September 2005 produced a noticeable degradation of all GPS signals on the day side of the Earth. When scaled up to the larger solar flares expected in 2011-12, Cornell researchers expect massive outages of all GPS receivers on the day side of the Earth.
The world's most widely used organic insecticide, a plucky bacterium known as Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt for short, requires the assistance of other microbes to perform its insect-slaying work, a new study has found.
The flow of copper in the brain has a previously unrecognized role in cell death, learning and memory, according to research. The researchers' findings suggest that copper and its transporter, a protein called Atp7a, are vital to human thinking. They speculate that variations in the genes coding for Atp7a, as well as other proteins of copper homeostasis, could partially account for differences in thinking among individuals.
Northeastern University professor Ferdi Hellweger and PhD student Indrani Ghosh are the co-authors of a paper titled "Simulating Urban Hydrology Using Artificial Sewer Networks" that suggest a novel method for engineers and scientists to better understand how a city's sewer systems will react to various storms.
Ancient rocks from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean suggest dramatic climate changes during the dinosaur-dominated Mesozoic Era, a time once thought to have been monotonously hot and humid.
Feverish fruit fly larvae, warmed in a toasty lab chamber, are giving Cornell researchers a way to watch chromosomes in action and actually see how genes are expressed in living tissue.
Keith Schwab, Cornell associate professor of physics, has created a device that approaches the quantum mechanical limit with the greatest precision ever relative to its size. And surprisingly, it also has shown how researchers can lower the temperature of an object -- just by watching it.
A research program by a Cornell computer scientist, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh and University of Utah, aims to teach computers to scan through text and sort opinion from fact.
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