ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Mayo Clinic researchers have successfully used smaller, folded DNA molecules to stimulate regeneration and repair of nerve coatings in mice that mimic multiple sclerosis (MS). They say the finding, published today in the journal PLoS ONE, suggests new possible therapies for MS patients. "The problem has been to find a way to encourage the nervous system to regenerate its own myelin (the coating on the nerves) so nerve cells can recover from an MS attack," says L. James Maher III, Ph.D., Mayo Clinic biochemist and senior author on the paper. "We ...

In a process akin to belling an infinitesimal cat, scientists have managed to tag a protein that regulates the neurotransmitter serotonin with tiny fluorescent beads, allowing them to track the movements of single molecules for the first time. The capability, which took nearly a decade to achieve, makes it possible to study the dynamics of serotonin regulation at a new level of detail, which is important because of the key role that serotonin plays in the regulation of mood, appetite and sleep. The achievement was reported by an interdisciplinary team of Vanderbilt scientists ...

Salmonella Typhi (S. Typhi) is the causative agent of typhoid fever, a serious health threat resulting in some 22 million new cases yearly and approximately 217,000 fatalities. A number of novel vaccine candidates using live attenuated strains of Salmonella are being developed, but care must be taken to ensure the bacteria are not excreted into the environment following vaccination. Karen Brenneman and her colleagues at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute have been examining ways to detect the presence of S. Typhi in stool following inoculation with various ...

Inhibiting a key immune response in mice during initial multi-drug treatment for tuberculosis could — paradoxically — shorten treatment time for the highly contagious lung infection according to new research from Johns Hopkins Children's Center and the Center for TB Research. Shorter duration of drug therapy is key, researchers say, to increase treatment compliance for the growing global health threat posed by the disease. In experiments described in the June 27 issue of PLoS ONE, the Johns Hopkins investigators compared a group of TB-infected mice receiving standard ...

Studies on some 55 U.S. men and women with potentially deadly liver or pancreatic cancers show that specialized MRI scans can tell within a month whether highly toxic chemotherapy is working and killing tumor cells long before tumors actually shrink – or fail to shrink. Using special software and MRI scanners, imaging experts at Johns Hopkins developed their new assay, known as a volumetric functional MRI scan, by exploiting the physiological differences in water movement and absorption inside cancer cells that are dying and those that are not. The studies are believed ...

Researchers at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging have corrected the genetic mutation responsible for Huntington's Disease (HD) using a human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) that came from a patient suffering from the incurable, inherited neurodegenerative disorder. Scientists took the diseased iPSCs, made the genetic correction, generated neural stem cells and then transplanted the mutation-free cells into a mouse model of HD where they are generating normal neurons in the area of the brain affected by HD. Results of the research are published in the June ...

This press release is available in German. An organism's ability to make new antibodies and use them to optimize its own immune defenses is of central importance in the fight against pathogens. In the case of severe infections, the overall relative speed with which an immune response proceeds could mean the difference between life and death. An international team of scientists, among them systems immunologist Prof. Michael Meyer-Hermann of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) of Braunschweig, Germany, has now found that asymmetric division of antibody-producing ...

Researchers have come up with a device that may enable people who are completely unable to speak or move at all to nevertheless manage unscripted back-and-forth conversation. The key to such silent and still communication is the first real-time, brain-scanning speller, according to the report published online on June 28 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. The new technology builds on groundbreaking earlier uses of fMRI brain scans to assess consciousness in people described as being in an unconscious, vegetative state and to enable them to answer yes and no ...

A new study--which includes the first large-scale comparison of fungi that cause rot decay--suggests that the evolution of a type of fungi known as white rot may have brought an end to a 60-million-year-long period of coal deposition known as the Carboniferous period. Coal deposits that accumulated during the Carboniferous, which ended about 300 million years ago, have historically fueled about 50 percent of U.S. electric power generation. In addition, the study provides insights about diverse fungal enzymes that might be used in the future to help generate biofuels, ...

For want of a nail, the nursery rhyme goes, a kingdom was lost. A similar, seemingly innocuous change—the evolution of a lineage of mushrooms—may have had a massive impact on the carbon cycle, bringing an end to the 60-million year period during which coal deposits were formed. Coal generated nearly half of the roughly four trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity consumed in the United States in 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. This fuel is actually the fossilized remains of plants that lived from around 360 to 300 million years ago. An international ...

University of Alberta researchers have uncovered physical proof that animals existed 585 million years ago, 30 million years earlier than all previous established records show. The discovery was made U of A geologists Ernesto Pecoits and Natalie Aubet in Uruguay. They found fossilized tracks of a centimetre long, slug-like animal left behind 585 million years ago in a silty sediment. Along with other U of A researchers, the team determined that the tracks were made by a primitive animal called a bilaterian, which is distinguished from other non-animal, simple life ...

Both innate and adaptive immune responses play an important role in controlling influenza virus infection, according to a study, published in the Open Access journal PLoS Computational Biology, by researchers from Oakland University, Michigan, and Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, USA. Influenza, as a contagious respiratory illness remains a major public health problem worldwide. Seasonal and pandemic influenza results in approximately 3 to 569 million cases of severe illness and approximately 250,000 to 500,000 deaths worldwide. Although most infected subjects ...

300 million years ago, the Earth suddenly interrupted massive production of coal. This fact determined the end of the Carboniferous, a period of the Paleozoic Era that had started 60 million years before, characterized by the successive formation of large carbon beds arising from accumulation and burial of ancient trees growing up in vast marshy forests. An international scientific team with participation of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) has found out that the end of this coal age coincided with the origin of a group of highly specialized fungi. The results, ...

A team of scientists, led by researcher Carles Lalueza-Fox from CSIC (Spanish National Research Council), has recovered - for the first time in history - part of the genome of two individuals living in the Mesolithic Period, 7000 years ago. Remains have been found at La Braña-Arintero site, located at Valdelugueros (León), Spain. The study results, published in the Current Biology magazine, indicate that current Iberian populations don't come from these groups genetically. The Mesolithic Period, framed between the Paleolithic and Neolithic Periods, is characterized by ...

Astronomer Alain Lecavelier des Etangs (CNRS-UPMC, France) and his team used Hubble to observe the atmosphere of exoplanet HD 189733b [1] during two periods in early 2010 and late 2011, as it was silhouetted against its parent star [2]. While backlit in this way, the planet's atmosphere imprints its chemical signature on the starlight, allowing astronomers to decode what is happening on scales that are too tiny to image directly. The observations were carried out in order to confirm what the team had previously seen once before in a different planetary system: the evaporation ...

HOUSTON – (June 28, 2012) – Researchers at Rice University have developed a lithium-ion battery that can be painted on virtually any surface. The rechargeable battery created in the lab of Rice materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan consists of spray-painted layers, each representing the components in a traditional battery. The research appears today in Nature's online, open-access journal Scientific Reports. "This means traditional packaging for batteries has given way to a much more flexible approach that allows all kinds of new design and integration possibilities ...

A new discovery could make more tomatoes taste like heirlooms, reports an international research team headed by a University of California, Davis, plant scientist. The finding, which will be reported in the June 29 issue of the journal Science, has significant implications for the U.S. tomato industry, which annually harvests more than 15 million tons of the fruit for processing and fresh-market sales. "This information about the gene responsible for the trait in wild and traditional varieties provides a strategy to recapture quality characteristics that had been unknowingly ...

A new study to be presented at the Society for Experimental Biology meeting on 30th June has shown that caffeine boosts power in older muscles, suggesting the stimulant could aid elderly people to maintain their strength, reducing the incidence of falls and injuries. For adults in their prime, caffeine helps muscles to produce more force. But as we age, our muscles naturally change and become weaker. Sports scientists at Coventry University looked for the first time at whether these age-related changes in muscle would alter the effect of caffeine. They found that ...

On the centenary of Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova expedition to the South Pole, a study to be presented at the Society for Experimental Biology meeting on Sunday 1st July has shown that Scott's men starved to death because they were consuming far too few calories to fuel their daily exertion. The researchers, environmental physiologist Dr Lewis Halsey of the University of Roehampton and polar explorer and physician Dr Mike Stroud, examined the voyage in light of today's knowledge of nutrition and how our bodies respond to extreme exercise, cold, and high altitude. They ...

New research published in BMC Genetics shows that the rhesus macaque has three times as much genetic variation than humans. However despite much of this extra variation being within genes, it does not affect protein function. Consequently damaging variations are at similar levels in macaques and humans - indicating a strong selection pressure to maintain gene function regardless of mutation rate or population size. Humans and rhesus macaques shared a common ancestor approximately 25 million years ago. Although there are now over seven billion humans on the planet only ...

Millions of people worldwide are exposed to arsenic from contaminated water, and we are all exposed to arsenic via the food we eat. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Nutrition Journal has demonstrated that people who ate more dietary vitamin B12 and animal protein had lower levels of arsenic (measured by deposition in toenails). Total dietary fat, animal fat, vegetable fat and saturated fat were also all associated with lower levels of arsenic, while omega 3 fatty acids, such as those found in fish oil, were associated with increased arsenic. Long ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—June 28, 2012—Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes and an international team of researchers have generated a human model of Huntington's disease—directly from the skin cells of patients with the disease. For years, scientists have studied Huntington's disease primarily in post-mortem brain tissue or laboratory animals modified to mimic the disease. Today, in Cell Stem Cell, the international team shows how they developed a human model of Huntington's disease, which causes a diverse range of neurological impairments. The new model should help scientists ...

Baltimore, MD — In mammals, most lipids (such as fatty acids and cholesterol) are absorbed into the body via the small intestine. The complexity of the cells and fluids that inhabit this organ make it very difficult to study in a laboratory setting. New research from Carnegie's Steven Farber, James Walters and Jennifer Anderson reveals a technique that allows scientists to watch lipid metabolism in live zebrafish. This method enabled them to describe new aspects of lipid absorption that could have broad applications for human health. Their work is published in Chemistry ...

For many grocery shoppers, those perfect, red tomatoes from the store just can't match the flavor from the home garden. Now, researchers at Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell University, USDA and the University of California at Davis have decoded a gene that contributes to the level of sugar, carbohydrates and carotenoids in tomatoes. (Science, June 29, 2012) Cuong Nguyen, a Cornell graduate student in plant breeding working at the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI), along with colleagues at BTI, USDA, UC Davis, Universidad Politecénica de Valencia (Spain), ...

LOS ANGELES (EMBARGOED UNTIL NOON EDT ON JUNE 28, 2012) – Cedars-Sinai scientists have joined with expert colleagues around the globe in using stem cells to develop a laboratory model for Huntington's disease, allowing researchers for the first time to test directly on human cells potential treatments for this fatal, inherited disorder. As explained in a paper published June 28 on the Cell Stem Cell website and scheduled for print in the journal's Aug. 3 issue, scientists at Cedars-Sinai's Regenerative Medicine Institute and the University of Wisconsin took skin cells ...