Most of the world's species are still unknown to science although many researchers grappled to address the question of how many species there are on Earth over the recent decades. Estimates of non-microbial diversity on Earth provided by researchers range from 2 million to over 50 million species, with great uncertainties in numbers of insects, fungi, nematodes, and deep-sea organisms. Some groups of species, such as plants and birds, are well-known, with scientists discovering relatively few new ones each year. For insects and fungi, however, it is almost impossible ...

Every sperm cell looks essentially the same, with that characteristic tadpole appearance. But inside, sperm cells carry differences within their genes—even cells from the same man. Now, researchers provide a detailed picture of how the cell's DNA varies in a new study published in the July 20, 2012 issue of the Cell Press journal Cell. The techniques used could be helpful for understanding male reproductive disorders or, when applied to other areas of research, for characterizing normal and diseased cells in the body. When parents pass on genetic material to their children ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research has shown that a protein does something that scientists once thought impossible: It unfolds itself and refolds into a completely new shape. This protein, called RfaH, activates genes that allow bacterial cells to launch a successful attack on their host, causing disease. The researchers determined that RfaH starts out in its alpha form, composed of two spiral shapes. Later, in its beta form, it resembles spokes on a wheel and is called a barrel. When RfaH refolds, it acquires a new function – yet another finding that researchers would ...

Highlights Patients with a particular kidney immune disorder experienced remission when taking the immune drug rituximab, even when standard therapies had failed. Rituximab was safe and well-tolerated by all patients in the study. Each year, an estimated 70,000 people globally are diagnosed with the disorder, called idiopathic membranous nephropathy. Washington, DC (July 19, 2012) — A drug commonly used to treat immune disorders such as lymphoma and arthritis also benefits patients with an immune disorder of the kidneys that can lead to kidney failure, according to ...

Highlights Phosphate binders, drugs commonly prescribed to patients with chronic kidney disease, may not be as effective as previously thought. Phosphate binders may have negative effects on cardiovascular health. Additional studies are needed on the safety and effectiveness of these drugs. Washington, DC (July 19, 2012) — Drugs commonly prescribed to patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) may not be as strongly effective as once thought, and may cause unexpected harm to blood vessels, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of ...

LA JOLLA, CA – Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have simultaneously mapped two of the most important types of protein-modification in cells, revealing their extensive cooperation during an essential cellular process. Phosphorylation, the attachment of a phosphate group to a protein, and proteolysis, the cleavage of a protein, had almost always been studied independently. The new research combines techniques for mapping these events across all proteins in a cell population to show how they work together to execute the cellular "auto-destruct program" known ...

KANSAS CITY, MO—Scientists at the Stowers Institute of Medical Research have developed an innovative method to count the number of fluorescent molecules in a cluster and then applied the novel approach to settle a debate rampant among cell biologists—namely, how DNA twists into a unique chromosomal structure called the centromere. Knowing this helps explain how cells navigate the hazards of division and avoid the disastrous consequences of ending up with the wrong number of chromosomes. Centromeres, which sit at the cross point of the "X" used to represent duplicated ...

KANSAS CITY, MO—Not all adult stem cells are created equal. Some are busy regenerating worn out or damaged tissues, while their quieter brethren serve as a strategic back-up crew that only steps in when demand shoots up. Now, researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have identified an important molecular cue that keeps quiescent mouse hematopoietic (or blood-forming) stem cells from proliferating when their services are not needed. Publishing in the July 20, 2012 issue of Cell, the team led by Stowers Investigator Linheng Li, Ph.D., report that Flamingo ...

ATLANTA –July 19, 2012—A large national sample of women diagnosed with cervical cancer between 2000 and 2007 finds lack of insurance was second only to age as the strongest predictor of late stage at diagnosis, a gap the authors say is likely attributable to lack of screening. The American Cancer Society estimates that 12,170 women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer and 4,220 women will die from the disease in 2012. Although incidence and mortality from cervical cancer have declined dramatically since the introduction of the Pap test, one in three cervical cancer ...

PHILADELPHIA — Inhibitors of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) are being assessed in clinical trials as a potential treatment for recurrent or refractory solid tumors. Clear genetic rationale for these trials, together with evidence that primary and metastatic lung tumors might be particularly susceptible to the drugs, is now reported in a preclinical study published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. "Our data provide preclinical genetic validation for the ongoing clinical trials testing IDO inhibitors in cancer patients," ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new study answers a question that has baffled researchers for more than 15 years: How does the western corn rootworm – an insect that thrives on corn but dies on soybeans – persist in fields that alternate between corn and soybeans? The answer, researchers say, has to do with enzyme production in the rootworm gut. Their findings are described in a paper in Ecology and Evolution. Crop rotation declined in the middle of the 20th century as the use of insecticides and fertilizers expanded in the U.S. Then in the 1950s and '60s, when some insecticides ...

NEW YORK, JULY 15, 2012 – Experts from the Comprehensive Center on Brain Aging at NYU Langone Medical Center will present new research at The 2012 Alzheimer's Association International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease to be held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, July 14 – July 19. From basic discovery to clinical applications, NYU Langone Medical Center has been at the forefront of the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's disease since the 1970s. The Comprehensive Center on Brain Aging, founded upon the strengths of the Silberstein Alzheimer's Institute, is ...

Muscle contraction and many other movement processes are controlled by the interplay between myosin and actin filaments. Two further proteins, tropomyosin and troponin, regulate how myosin binds to actin. While theoretical models have in fact described exactly how these muscle proteins interact, this interaction has never previously been observed in detail. Stefan Raunser and Elmar Behrmann from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Dortmund have now managed to image the actin-myosin-tropomyosin complex with an unprecedented accuracy of 0.8 nanometres, which ...

STANFORD, Calif. — The entire genomes of 91 human sperm from one man have been sequenced by Stanford University researchers. The results provide a fascinating glimpse into naturally occurring genetic variation in one individual, and are the first to report the whole-genome sequence of a human gamete — the only cells that become a child and through which parents pass on physical traits. "This represents the culmination of nearly a decade of work in my lab," said Stephen Quake, PhD, the Lee Otterson Professor in the School of Engineering and professor of bioengineering ...

TORONTO, ON – Humans get most of the blame for climate change, with little attention paid to the contribution of other natural forces. Now, scientists from the University of Toronto and the University of California Santa Cruz are shedding light on one potential cause of the cooling trend of the past 45 million years that has everything to do with the chemistry of the world's oceans. "Seawater chemistry is characterized by long phases of stability, which are interrupted by short intervals of rapid change," says Professor Ulrich Wortmann in the Department of Earth Sciences ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Why do we age, and what makes some of us live longer than others? For decades, researchers have been trying to answer these questions by elucidating the molecular causes of aging. One of the most popular theories is that the accumulation of oxygen radicals over time might be the underlying culprit in aging. Oxygen radicals are chemically reactive molecules that can damage cellular components such as lipids, proteins and nucleic acids, resulting in "oxidative stress." The possible link between oxidative stress and aging has led to the proliferation ...

AMHERST, Mass. – Medical devices save countless lives, and increasingly functions such as data storage and wireless communication allow for individualized patient care and other advances. But after their recent study, an interdisciplinary team of medical researchers and computer scientists warn that federal regulators need to improve how they track security and privacy problems in medical devices. Researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Harvard Medical School and the University of Massachusetts Amherst analyzed reports from decades of U.S. Food and Drug ...

Certain kinds of viruses such as those that cause the common cold, SARS, hepatitis, and encephalitis, copy themselves using a unique mechanism, according to a team of Penn State University scientists that includes David Boehr, an assistant professor of chemistry and a co-leader of the research team. The discovery sheds light on a previously identified, but never-before-understood region of an enzyme associated with the process of replicating genetic material. The research is an important step toward the improvement of existing vaccines, as well as toward the design of vaccines ...

Korean scientists have used tiny stars, squares and triangles as a toolkit to create live neural circuits in a dish. They hope the shapes can be used to create a reproducible neural circuit model that could be used for learning and memory studies as well as drug screening applications; the shapes could also be integrated into the latest neural tissue scaffolds to aid the regeneration of neurons at injured sites in the body, such as the spinal cord. Published today, 20 July, in IOP Publishing's Journal of Neural Engineering, the study, by researchers at the Korea Advanced ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Breast cancer treatments such as Herceptin that target a marker called HER2 have dramatically improved outcomes for women with this type of cancer. But nearly half of these cancers are resistant to Herceptin from the start and almost all of them will eventually become resistant. Now, researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have discovered one reason why the cancer cells become resistant: They turn on a completely different pathway, one that is involved in inflammation, fueling the cancer independently of HER2. The pathway ...

VANCOUVER - While clinical trial results are being released regarding drugs intended to decrease amyloid production - thought to contribute to decline in Alzheimer's disease - clinical trials of drugs targeting other disease proteins, such as tau, are in their initial phases. Penn Medicine research presented today at the 2012 Alzheimer's Association International Conference (AAIC) shows that an anti-tau treatment called epithilone D (EpoD) was effective in preventing and intervening the progress of Alzheimer's disease in animal models, improving neuron function and ...

Hundreds of mutations exist in leukemia cells at the time of diagnosis, but nearly all occur randomly as a part of normal aging and are not related to cancer, new research shows. Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that even in healthy people, stem cells in the blood routinely accumulate new mutations over the course of a person's lifetime. And their research shows that in many cases only two or three additional genetic changes are required to transform a normal blood cell already dotted with mutations into acute myeloid leukemia ...

For children receiving kidney transplants, a potentially correctable blood condition present in about one in four recipients is associated with a moderately increased risk of the graft's later failure, suggesting that clinicians should weigh whether transplant is advisable when the condition is present, according to UC Davis research presented today at the 24th International Congress of the Transplantation Society in Berlin. Children with chronic kidney disease often have the condition, called low serum albumin, as a result of inflammation or malnutrition, among other ...

Chemical batteries power many different mobile electronic devices, but repeated charging and discharging cycles can wear them out. An alternative energy storage device called an ultracapacitor can be recharged hundreds of thousands of times without degrading, but ultracapacitors have their own disadvantages, including a voltage output that drops precipitously as the device is discharged. Now a researcher from the University of West Florida has designed an ultracapacitor that maintains a near steady voltage. The novel constant-voltage design, which may one day help ultracapacitors ...

VIDEO: The difference between the cognitive styles of two monkeys is clearly visible in the neural population vectors for hand movement direction. The instant the target (green) appears, monkey H plans... Click here for more information. Anyone who has looked at the jagged recording of the electrical activity of a single neuron in the brain must have wondered how any useful information could be extracted from such a frazzled signal. But over the past 30 years, researchers ...