New findings from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital reveal an unconventional control mechanism involved in the production of specialized T cells that play a critical role in maintaining immune system balance. The research appears in the current online edition of the scientific journal Nature. The work focused on white blood cells known as regulatory T cells. These cells are crucial for a balanced immune response. Regulatory T cells suppress other immune system components in order to protect healthy tissue from misguided immune attacks or to prevent runaway inflammation. St. ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — For years, pilots flying into combat have jammed enemy radar to get the drop on their opponents. It turns out that moths can do it, too. A new study co-authored by a University of Florida researcher shows hawkmoths use sonic pulses from their genitals to respond to bats producing the high-frequency sounds, possibly as a self-defense mechanism to jam the echolocation ability of their predators. Echolocation research may be used to better understand or improve ultrasound as a vital tool in medicine, used for observing prenatal development, measuring ...

Physicians at Johns Hopkins say they are encouraged by early results in three patients of their new treatment for gastroparesis, a condition marked by the failure of the stomach to properly empty its contents into the small intestine. In an article published online today in the journal Endoscopy, they describe how the placement of a small metal stent in the stomach can improve life for people who suffer from severe bouts of nausea, abdominal pain and vomiting that accompany the condition. John Clarke, M.D., assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University ...

Johns Hopkins cancer scientists have discovered that a little-described gene known as FAM190A plays a subtle but critical role in regulating the normal cell division process known as mitosis, and the scientists' research suggests that mutations in the gene may contribute to commonly found chromosomal instability in cancer. In laboratory studies of cells, investigators found that knocking down expression of FAM190A disrupts mitosis. In three pancreatic cancer-cell lines and a standard human-cell line engineered to be deficient in FAM190A, researchers observed that cells ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A process combining some comparatively cheap materials and the same antifreeze that keeps an automobile radiator from freezing in cold weather may be the key to making solar cells that cost less and avoid toxic compounds, while further expanding the use of solar energy. And when perfected, this approach might also cook up the solar cells in a microwave oven similar to the one in most kitchens. Engineers at Oregon State University have determined that ethylene glycol, commonly used in antifreeze products, can be a low-cost solvent that functions well ...

LOS ANGELES — The La Brea Tar Pits have stirred the imaginations of scientists and the public alike for over a century. But the amount of time it took for ancient animals to become buried in asphalt after enduring their gruesome deaths has remained a mystery. Recent forensic investigations, led by Anna R. Holden of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM) and colleagues, reveal new insights into fossilization and the prevailing climate at the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits toward the end of the last Ice Age. The paper, entitled "Paleoecological and taphonomic implications ...

SYDNEY: An international team led by the University of New South Wales has studied a distant star where gravity is more than 30,000 times greater than on Earth to test its controversial theory that one of the constants of Nature is not a constant. Dr Julian Berengut and his colleagues used the Hubble Space Telescope to measure the strength of the electromagnetic force – known as alpha – on a white dwarf star. Their results, which do not contradict the variable constant theory, are to be published in the journal Physical Review Letters. Dr Berengut, of the UNSW School ...

New BYU research finds that people in happy marriages live less "in sickness" but enjoy more of life "in health." In a 20-year longitudinal study tracking health and marriage quality, BYU family life researcher Rick Miller found that as the quality of marriage holds up over the years, physical health holds up too. "There's evidence from previous research that marital conflict leads to poor health," Miller said. "But this study also shows happy marriages have a preventative component that keeps you in good health over the years." A previous BYU study caught national ...

In 2000, researchers at the UCLA Center for Sleep Research published findings showing that people suffering from narcolepsy, a disorder characterized by uncontrollable periods of deep sleep, had 90 percent fewer neurons containing the neuropeptide hypocretin in their brains than healthy people. The study was the first to show a possible biological cause of the disorder. Subsequent work by this group and others demonstrated that hypocretin is an arousing chemical that keeps us awake and elevates both mood and alertness; the death of hypocretin cells, the researchers ...

Brain aneurysms of all sizes — even small ones the size of a pea — are up to 12 times more likely to rupture if they are growing, according to a new UCLA study. Published July 2 in the online edition of the journal Radiology, the discovery counters current guidelines suggesting that small aneurysms pose a low risk for rupture, and it emphasizes the need for regular monitoring and earlier treatment. "Until now, we believed that large aneurysms presented the highest risk for rupture and that smaller aneurysms may not require monitoring," said lead author Dr. J. Pablo ...

University of Adelaide research has produced a potential new antibiotic which could help in the battle against bacterial resistance to antibiotics. The potential new antibiotic targets a bacterial enzyme critical to metabolic processes. The compound is a protein inhibitor which binds to the enzyme (called biotin protein ligase), stopping its action and interrupting the life cycle of the bacteria. "Existing antibiotics target the bacterial cell membranes but this potential new antibiotic operates in a completely different way," says Professor Andrew Abell, project ...

July 3, 2013, Shenzhen, China – The international team, which included researchers from University of Copenhagen, BGI and other institutes, has successfully sequenced and analyzed the short pieces of DNA preserved in bone-remnants from a horse frozen for the last 700,000 years in the permafrost of Yukon, Canada. This is the oldest genome reported so far, which is ten times as old as the ancient Denisovan genome reported in last year. The work here laid a solid foundation for researchers to further decode other extinct species and clarify biology evolution. The Thistle ...

PHILADELPHIA - Neurodegenerative diseases are not all alike. Two individuals suffering from the same disease may experience very different age of onset, symptoms, severity, and constellation of impairments, as well as different rates of disease progression. Researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have shown one disease protein can morph into different strains and promote misfolding of other disease proteins commonly found in Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other related neurodegenerative diseases. Virginia M.Y. Lee, PhD, MBA, professor ...

For young lizards born into this unpredictable world, their very first meal can be a major life changer. So say researchers who report evidence on July 3 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, that this early detail influences how the lizards disperse from their birthplaces, how they grow, and whether they survive. A quick or slow meal even influences the lizards' reproductive success two years later in a surprising way. The findings demonstrate something very important: fleeting moments in time really can change the lives of individuals and the evolutionary paths ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Researchers are striving to understand the different genetic structures that underlie at least a subset of autism spectrum disorders. In cases where the genetic code is in error, did that happen anew in the patient, perhaps through mutation or copying error, or was it inherited? A new study in the American Journal of Human Genetics finds evidence that there may often be a recessive, inherited genetic contribution in autism with significant intellectual disability. The authors also make predictions in the study regarding how far back ...

Scientists have identified the genetic cause of a rare skin condition that causes the hands and feet to turn white and spongy when exposed to water. The study, led by researchers from Queen Mary, University of London, has provided scientists with an insight into how the skin barrier functions and could help with research into a variety of conditions. Diffuse non-epidermolytic palmoplantar keratoderma (NEPPK) is a rare condition in which individuals have thickened, yellowish skin over their palms and soles, thickened nails and suffer from excessive sweating. When their ...

Thousands of sequences that control genes are active in the developing human limb and may have driven the evolution of the human hand and foot, a comparative genomics study led by Yale School of Medicine researchers has found The research, published online July 3 in the journal Cell, does not pinpoint the exact genetic mechanisms that control development of human limbs, but instead provides scientists with the first genome-wide view of candidates to investigate. "We now have a parts list that may account for these biological changes," said James P. Noonan, associate ...

In a study that could change the way scientists view the process of protein production in humans, University of Chicago researchers have found a single gene that encodes two separate proteins from the same sequence of messenger RNA. Published online July 3 in Cell, their finding elucidates a previously unknown mechanism in human gene expression and opens the door for new therapeutic strategies against a thus-far untreatable neurological disease. "This is the first example of a mechanism in a higher organism in which one gene creates two proteins from the same mRNA transcript, ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (July 3, 2013) – In a discovery that sheds new light on the aggressiveness of certain breast cancers, Whitehead Institute researchers have identified a transcription factor, known as ZEB1, that is capable of converting non-aggressive basal-type cancer cells into highly malignant, tumor-forming cancer stem cells (CSCs). Intriguingly, luminal breast cancer cells, which are associated with a much better clinical prognosis, carry this gene in a state in which it seems to be permanently shut down. The researchers, whose findings are published this week ...

It only takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch, and the same may be true of certain proteins in the brain. Studies have suggested that just one rogue protein (in this case, a protein that is misfolded or shaped the wrong way) can act as a seed, leading to the misfolding of nearby proteins. According to an NIH-funded study, various forms of these seeds — originating from the same protein — may lead to different patterns of misfolding that result in neurological disorders with unique sets of symptoms. "This study has important implications for Parkinson's disease and other ...

Tweezers are a handy instrument when it comes to removing a splinter or plucking an eyebrow. In new research, Hao Yan and his colleagues at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute describe a pair of tweezers shrunk down to an astonishingly tiny scale. When the jaws of these tools are in the open position, the distance between the two arms is about 16 nanometers—over 30,000 times smaller than a single grain of sand. The group demonstrated that the nanotweezers, fabricated by means of the base-pairing properties of DNA, could be used to keep biological molecules ...

Lugano-Barcelona, 3 July 2013 -- For patients with advanced gastric cancer, treatment with chemotherapy after surgery can reduce the risk of cancer related death by 34% over five years compared to surgery alone, researchers said at the 15th ESMO World Congress in Gastrointestinal Cancer. At the meeting Prof Sung Hoon Noh, a gastric surgeon from Yonsei University College of Medicine, Korea, presented 5-year follow-up from the phase III CLASSIC trial, which added combination chemotherapy to a standard surgical procedure called D2 gastrectomy. The chemotherapy regimen studied ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (July 3, 2013) – Whitehead Institute researchers have determined that the transcription factor Nanog, which plays a critical role in the self-renewal of embryonic stem cells, is expressed in a manner similar to other pluripotency markers. This finding contradicts the field's presumptions about this important gene and its role in the differentiation of embryonic stem cells. A large body of research has reported that Nanog is allelically regulated—that is, only one copy of the gene is expressed at any given time—and fluctuations in its expression are responsible ...

BOSTON -- A mere 25 years ago, noncoding RNAs were considered nothing more than "background noise" in the overall genomic landscape. Now, two new studies reveal that one of these tiny noncoding molecules – microRNA-22 – plays an outsized role in two types of cancer. Reported on-line today in the journals Cell and Cell Stem Cell, the two papers demonstrate in mouse models that miR-22 drives both the onset and spread of breast cancer, as well as the onset of blood cancer. The findings, led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), further suggest ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (July 3, 2013)—Women with HIV are living longer, so more are entering menopause. As they do, they suffer more severe hot flashes than women without HIV, and their hot flashes take a heavier toll on their quality of life and daily functioning, found researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital. Their study was published online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society. That toll has the potential to undermine an already shaky foundation for their lives, compromising their health, HIV treatment, and ability to abstain from ...