The calorie-burning triggered by cold temperatures can be achieved biochemically – without the chill – raising hopes for a weight-loss strategy focused on the immune system rather than the brain, according to a new study by UC San Francisco researchers. The team determined that two signaling molecules secreted by cells of the immune system trigger the conversion of fat-storing white fat cells to fat-burning beige fat cells. Ajay Chawla, MD, PhD, an associate professor of medicine at the UCSF Cardiovascular Research Institute, led the study, published online June 5, 2014 ...

LA JOLLA, CA—June 5, 2014—A team led by researchers at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has used advanced electron microscopy techniques to determine the first accurate structural map of Mediator, one of the largest and most complex "molecular machines" in cells. Mediator is crucial for the regulation of most genes' activity and works in the cells of all plants and animals. The mapping of its structure—which includes more than two dozen unique protein subunits—represents a significant advance in basic cell biology and should shed light on medical conditions involving ...

TORONTO, June 5, 2014 – From 2006 to 2008, nearly 75 per cent of Ontarians with diabetes did not receive all of the tests recommended to properly monitor their disease. How their doctor was paid was one of the factors determining the care they received, according to a study by researchers at St. Michael's Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES). The study, published today in the Canadian Journal of Diabetes, found that patients who were not actively enrolled with a family doctor were least likely to receive optimum diabetes care. The researchers ...

Proteins are responsible for the vast majority of the cellular functions that shape life, but like guests at a crowded dinner party, they interact transiently and in complex networks, making it difficult to determine which specific interactions are most important. Now, researchers from the University of Chicago have pioneered a new technique to simplify the study of protein networks and identify the importance of individual protein interactions. By designing synthetic proteins that can only interact with a pre-determined partner, and introducing them into cells, the team ...

New findings about the biological links between obesity, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes may also shed light on the connection between obesity and cancer, says a scientist at The University of Texas at Dallas. In a study published online June 5 in the journal Cell, UT Dallas' Dr. Jung-whan (Jay) Kim and colleagues at the University of California, San Diego found that a protein called HIF-1 alpha plays a key role in the development of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes in obese mice. The researchers genetically engineered mice to lack the HIF-1 alpha protein ...

The way we navigate from A to B is controlled by two brain regions which track the distance to our destination, according to new research funded by the Wellcome Trust and published in Current Biology. The study found that at the beginning of a journey, one region of the brain calculates the straight-line to the destination ('the distance as a crow flies'), but during travel a different area of the brain computes the precise distance along the path to get there. The findings pinpoint the precise brain regions used and in doing so change how scientists believed we use ...

HPV (human papillomavirus) infection is widely known to induce cancer. Many of the mutations that cause this virally-induced cancer are caused by a family of genes that normally combats viral infections, finds new UCL (University College London) research. This raises the possibility of developing drugs to regulate the activity of these genes to prevent HPV-associated cancers from developing and reduce the ability of existing cancers to evolve resistance to treatments. The research, published in Cell Reports, shows for the first time that genes from the 'APOBEC' family, ...

Cells must transport nutrients and messenger cargos through its membrane and transport them within the cell at the correct time and place. This procedure is complex and is regulated with the help of specific genes. If disturbances in the transport mechanism arise, severe diseases, such as diabetes, cancer and diverse neurological pathologies, are the consequence. The discovery of the molecular principles of cellular transport was honored with the Nobel Prize of physiology and medicine in 2013. While knowing the intracellular roads and the functioning of the cars that use ...

If you have it, you probably don't know it. Cytomegalovirus, or CMV, is perhaps one of the biggest pathogens you've never heard of—big, both proportionately and epidemiologically. It contains approximately 200 genes, compared to HIV's paltry 18, and it's everywhere. You can catch it as a preschooler salivating over blocks, or as a teenager experiencing your first kiss. Once you have it, you have it for life. Good news: If you're healthy, it's harmless. Your T cells keep it in check, and you'll be none the wiser. Bad news: If you have any medical condition that dampens ...

In laboratory tests, researchers have used electrical stimulation of retinal cells to produce the same patterns of activity that occur when the retina sees a moving object. Although more work remains, this is a step toward restoring natural, high-fidelity vision to blind people, the researchers say. The work was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health. Just 20 years ago, bionic vision was more a science fiction cliché than a realistic medical goal. But in the past few years, the first artificial vision technology has come on the market in the United States ...

When we talk about genetic material, we are usually referring to the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) that we inherit from our parents. This DNA is the factory where is built a similar molecule called RNA (ribonucleic acid) which produces our proteins, such as hemoglobin or insulin , allowing the lives of our cells. But there is a special group called non-coding RNA that has a more enigmatic function. The best known is microRNAs, tiny molecules that are responsible for turning on or off our genome like an electrical current switch. Today, an article published in the prestigious ...

Harvard Stem Cell Institute scientists at Boston Children's Hospital have new evidence in mice that it may be possible to repair a chronically diseased liver by forcing mature liver cells to revert back to a stem cell-like state. The researchers, led by Fernando Camargo, PhD, happened upon this discovery while investigating whether a biochemical cascade called Hippo, which controls how big the liver grows, also affects cell fate. The unexpected answer, published in the journal Cell, is that switching off the Hippo-signaling pathway in mature liver cells generates very ...

Twenty-seven chemical elements are considered to be essential for human life. Now there is a 28th – bromine. In a paper published Thursday by the journal Cell, Vanderbilt University researchers establish for the first time that bromine, among the 92 naturally-occurring chemical elements in the universe, is the 28th element essential for tissue development in all animals, from primitive sea creatures to humans. "Without bromine, there are no animals. That's the discovery," said Billy Hudson, Ph.D., the paper's senior author and Elliott V. Newman Professor of Medicine. The ...

Like many other insect pollinators, bees find their way around by using a polarization sensitive area in their eyes to 'see' skylight polarization patterns. However, while other insects are known to use such sensitivity to identify appropriate habitats, locate suitable sites to lay their eggs and find food, a non-navigation function for polarization vision has never been identified in bees – until now. Professor Julian Partridge, from Bristol's School of Biological Sciences and the School of Animal Biology at the University of Western Australia, with his Bristol-based ...

Case Western Reserve researchers have discovered landmarks within pluripotent stem cells that guide how they develop to serve different purposes within the body. This breakthrough offers promise that scientists eventually will be able to direct stem cells in ways that prevent disease or repair damage from injury or illness. The study and its results appear in the June 5 edition of the journal Cell Stem Cell. Pluripotent stem cells are so named because they can evolve into any of the cell types that exist within the body. Their immense potential captured the attention ...

DARIEN, IL – A new study suggests that couples are more likely to sleep in sync when the wife is more satisfied with their marriage. Results show that overall synchrony in sleep-wake schedules among couples was high, as those who slept in the same bed were awake or asleep at the same time about 75 percent of the time. When the wife reported higher marital satisfaction, the percent of time the couple was awake or asleep at the same time was greater. "Most of what is known about sleep comes from studying it at the individual level; however, for most adults, sleep is a ...

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have, for the first time, described the sequence of early cellular responses to a high-fat diet, one that can result in obesity-induced insulin resistance and diabetes. The findings, published in the June 5 issue of Cell, also suggest potential molecular targets for preventing or reversing the process. "We've described the etiology of obesity-related diabetes. We've pinpointed the steps, the way the whole thing happens," said Jerrold M. Olefsky, MD, associate dean for Scientific Affairs and Distinguished ...

COLUMBIA, Mo — As the U.S. economy slowly recovers many investors remain wary about investing in the stock market. Now, Michael Guillemette, an assistant professor of personal financial planning in the University of Missouri College of Human Environmental Sciences, analyzed investors' "risk tolerance," or willingness to take risks, and found that it decreased as the stock market faltered. Guillemette says this is a very counterproductive behavior for investors who want to maximize their investment returns. "At its face, it seems fairly obvious that investors would be ...

This news release is available in French. As far back as the time of the dinosaurs, 66 million years ago, forests recovered from fires in the same manner they do today, according to a team of researchers from McGill University and the Royal Saskatchewan Museum. During an expedition in southern Saskatchewan, Canada, the team discovered the first fossil-record evidence of forest fire ecology - the regrowth of plants after a fire - revealing a snapshot of the ecology on earth just before the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. The researchers also found evidence that ...

TORONTO, ON – University of Toronto biologists leading an investigation into the cells that regulate proper brain function, have identified and located the key players whose actions contribute to afflictions such as epilepsy and schizophrenia. The discovery is a major step toward developing improved treatments for these and other neurological disorders. "Neurons in the brain communicate with other neurons through synapses, communication that can either excite or inhibit other neurons," said Professor Melanie Woodin in the Department of Cell and Systems Biology at the ...

Young children instinctively use a "language-like" structure to communicate through gestures, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The research, led by the University of Warwick, shows that when young children are asked to use gestures to communicate, their gestures segment information and reorganize it into language-like sequences. This finding suggests that children are not just learning language from older generations — their own preferences in communication may have shaped how languages ...

WASHINGTON -- While civil aviation is on the threshold of potentially revolutionary changes with the emergence of increasingly autonomous unmanned aircraft, these new systems pose serious questions about how they will be safely and efficiently integrated into the existing civil aviation structure, says a new report from the National Research Council. The report identifies key barriers and provides a research agenda to aid the orderly incorporation of unmanned and autonomous aircraft into public airspace. "There is little doubt that over the long run the potential benefits ...

JUPITER, FL, June 5, 2014 – In the last few years, the benefits of short, intense workouts have been extolled by both researchers and exercise fans as something of a metabolic panacea capable of providing greater overall fitness, better blood sugar control and weight reduction—all of it in periods as short as seven minutes a few times a week. Now, in a new study, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) confirm that there is something molecularly unique about intense exercise: the activation of a single protein. The study, published ...

The key to helping students learn complicated math is to understand how to apply it to new ideas and make learning more interactive, according to a new study by UBC researchers. Pre-class assignments, small group discussions and clicker quizzes improve students' ability to grasp tricky first-year calculus concepts. Students taught in such active-engagement classes were 10 per cent more likely to understand key concepts on subsequent quizzes, according to the study published The International Journal on Mathematics Education. This was true even when compared to students ...

Dartmouth researchers have found that those caring for patients with advanced cancer experienced reduced depression and felt less burdened by caregiving tasks when palliative support services were offered soon after the patient's diagnosis. They presented their findings at the American Society of Clinical Oncologist (ASCO) annual meeting in Chicago on June 3, 2014. "Family caregivers are a crucial part of the patient care team. Because the well-being of one affects the well-being of the other, both parties benefit when caregivers receive palliative care," said senior ...