Spontaneous transfer of mitochondrial DNA into the nuclear genomes in the human brain over the individual’s lifespan

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A type of drug developed for treating cancer holds promise as a new treatment for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, according to a recent study by researchers at Penn State, Stanford University and an international team of collaborators. The researchers discovered that by blocking a specific enzyme called indoleamine-2,3-dioxygenase 1, or IDO1 for short, they could rescue memory and brain function in models that mimic Alzheimer’s disease. The findings, published today (Aug. 22) in the journal Science, suggest that IDO1 inhibitors currently ...

Among the many ways neuroscientists think Alzheimer’s disease may strip away brain function is by disrupting the glucose metabolism needed to fuel the healthy brain. In essence, declining metabolism robs the brain of energy, impairing thinking and memory. Against that backdrop, a team of neuroscientists at the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience at Stanford’s Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute have zeroed in on a critical regulator of brain metabolism known as the kynurenine pathway. They hypothesize that that the kynurenine pathway is overactivated as a result of ...

A new study led by scientists from the University of Bristol has revealed what animals do after they have feigned death in order to avoid being killed by a predator and what the context of this behaviour is. Many animals, as a last-ditch defence, become motionless after being contacted by a predator. This behaviour is so common that it's recognised in such phrases as “playing possum”. It is even said to occur in humans in extreme circumstances.  In previous studies, carried out by the same team using antlion larvae, scientists noticed that they become motionless after being individually handled. At one point ...

Many fish stocks around the world are either threatened by overfishing or have already collapsed. One of the main reasons for this devastating trend is that policymakers have often ignored the catch limits calculated by scientists, which were intended to be strict thresholds to protect stocks. But it has now become clear that even these scientific recommendations were often too high. In the European Union (EU), for example, fisheries are primarily managed through allowable catch limits, known as quotas, which are set by the European ...

New research using neural networks, a form of brain-inspired AI, proposes a solution to the tough challenge of modelling the states of molecules. The research shows how the technique can help solve fundamental equations in complex molecular systems. This could lead to practical uses in the future, helping researchers to prototype new materials and chemical syntheses using computer simulation before trying to make them in the lab. Led by Imperial College London and Google DeepMind scientists, the study is published today in Science. Excited molecules The team investigated the problem of understanding ...

NEW YORK, NY (Aug. 22, 2024)--As direct descendants of ancient bacteria, mitochondria have always been a little alien. Now a study shows that mitochondria are possibly even stranger than we thought.  Mitochondria in our brain cells frequently fling their DNA into the nucleus, the study found, where the DNA becomes integrated into the cells’ chromosomes. And these insertions may be causing harm: Among the study’s nearly 1,200 participants, those with more mitochondrial DNA insertions in their brain cells ...

“DNA, RNA and proteins are the key players to regulate all processes in the cells of our body,” Leiden Professor John van Noort explains. “To understand the (mis-)functioning of these molecules, it is essential to uncover how their 3D structure depends on their sequence and for this it is necessary to measure them one molecule at a time. However, single-molecule measurements are laborious and slow, and the number of possible sequence variations is massive.” From decades to days Now the team of scientists developed an innovative tool, called SPARXS (Single-molecule Parallel Analysis for Rapid eXploration ...

NEW YORK, NY (Aug. 22, 2024)--Columbia University announced today a new $400 million gift from Roy and Diana Vagelos, which will secure Columbia’s leadership in biomedical science research and education and produce a vast array of compelling opportunities for improving society’s health and wellbeing. The gift is the single largest ever made to Columbia’s medical school and, taken together with their previous giving, establishes Roy and Diana as the most generous donors in the history of Columbia University.  A ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Air pollution is bad for mental health. That much is clear. Now, new research shows the impact may be even worse in neighborhoods that were historically redlined.  University at Buffalo researchers looked at 17 cities across New York State where longstanding federal housing policies once denied neighborhoods with people of color from receiving mortgages. Although this practice was outlawed in 1968, the researchers found that elevated levels of air pollutants in these neighborhoods of the state ...

An international team of 45 researchers studying meteor showers has found that not all comets crumble the same way when they approach the Sun. In a paper published in the journal Icarus this week, they ascribe the differences to the conditions in the protoplanetary disk where comets formed 4.5 billion years ago. “The meteoroids we see as meteors in the night sky are the size of small pebbles,” said lead author and SETI Institute and NASA Ames meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens. “They are, in fact, the same size as the pebbles that collapsed into comets during the formation of ...