Boston, MA – Advances in DNA sequencing technology have revolutionized biomedical research and taken us another step forward in personalized medicine. Now, scientists led by Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), Harvard Medical School (HMS), the Broad Institute, the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (WTSI), the University of Washington, and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, have developed a new framework for analyzing key genetic variations that previously were overlooked. The research will be published in the February 3 issue of the prestigious journal Nature. Identifying ...

A detailed analysis of data from 185 human genomes sequenced in the course of the 1000 Genomes Project, by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, in collaboration with researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK, as well as the University of Washington and Harvard Medical School, both in the USA, has identified the genetic sequence of an unprecedented 28 000 structural variants (SVs) – large portions of the human genome which differ from one person to another. The work, published today in Nature, could ...

NGC 3621 is a spiral galaxy about 22 million light-years away in the constellation of Hydra (The Sea Snake). It is comparatively bright and can be seen well in moderate-sized telescopes. This picture was taken using the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. The data were selected from the ESO archive by Joe DePasquale as part of the Hidden Treasures competition [1]. Joe's picture of NGC 3621 was ranked fourth in the competition. This galaxy has a flat pancake shape, indicating that it hasn't yet come face to face ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- For several decades, researchers have been linking genetic mutations to diseases ranging from cancer to developmental abnormalities. What hasn't been clear, however, is how the body's genome sustains such destructive glitches in the first place. Now a team of Mayo Clinic scientists and collaborators provide an unprecedented glimpse of a little-understood gene, called MMSET, revealing how it enables disease-causing mutations to occur. The findings appear in the current issue of Nature. "MMSET had been known for many years, and had been shown to be mutated ...

Are we on the verge of being able to stimulate the brain to see the world anew - an electric thinking cap? Research by Richard Chi and Allan Snyder from the Centre for the Mind at the University of Sydney suggests that this could be the case. They found that participants who received electrical stimulation of the anterior temporal lobes were three times as likely to reach the fresh insight necessary to solve a difficult, unfamiliar problem than those in the control group. The study published on February 2 in the open-access journal PLoS ONE. According to the authors, ...

New research from the Twins Early Development Study at King's College London Institute of Psychiatry (IoP), published in PLoS ONE on February 2nd, shows that measures used to judge the effectiveness of schools are partly influenced by genetic factors in students. The study, funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC), was conducted by scientists in the UK at the MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, King's IoP, and in the US at the University of New Mexico. The assumption behind measures of school effectiveness is that changes in student performance ...

Chestnut Hill, Mass. (2/3/2011) – Analyzing billions of pieces of genetic data collected from people around the world, Boston College biologist Gabor Marth and his research team are playing an integral role in the global effort to sequence 1000 genomes and move closer to understanding in fine detail how genetics influence human health and development. The most comprehensive map to date of genomic structural variants – the layer of our DNA that begins to distinguish us from one another – has been assembled by analyzing 185 human genomes, Marth and co-authors from the 1000 ...

BOSTON—Prostate tumors that carry a "signature" of four molecular markers have the potential to become dangerously metastatic if not treated aggressively, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute report in a study published online today by the journal Nature. The discovery lays the groundwork for the first gene-based test for determining whether a man's prostate cancer is likely to remain dormant within the prostate gland, or spread lethally to other parts of the body. By analyzing prostate cancer tissue from hundreds of men participating in a national health study, ...

In a major advance for schizophrenia research, an international team of scientists, led by Jonathan Sebat, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry and cellular and molecular medicine at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, has identified a gene mutation strongly linked to the brain disorder – and a signaling pathway that may be treatable with existing compounds. The work poses significant and immediate implications for neurobiology and the treatment of schizophrenia because the gene identified by the researchers is an especially attractive target ...

LA JOLLA, CA—Reprogramming adult cells to recapture their youthful "can-do-it-all" attitude appears to leave an indelible mark, found researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. When the team, led by Joseph Ecker, PhD., a professor in the Genomic Analysis Laboratory, scoured the epigenomes of so-called induced pluripotent stem cells base by base, they found a consistent pattern of reprogramming errors. What's more, these incompletely or inadequately reprogrammed hotspots are maintained when iPS cells are differentiated into a more specialized cell type, ...

A perplexing medical paradox now has an explanation according to research undertaken at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry and published in the current issue of the Public Library of Science. The paradox is that taking folic acid, a B vitamin, lowers homocysteine in the blood which, epidemiological evidence indicates, should lower the risk of heart attack, but clinical trials of folic acid have not shown the expected benefit. The explanation is surprisingly simple; lowering homocysteine prevents platelets sticking, which stops blood clots…something ...

It may look like an over-grown slug, but scientists at Newcastle University believe the sea cucumber could play a vital role in the fight to save our seas - and become an unusual addition to British gourmet food. Not only is this salty Asian delicacy a rich source of nutrients, it is also an important part of the marine ecosystem. Much like worms working soil in a garden, sea cucumbers are responsible for cleaning up the sea bed - moving, consuming and mixing marine sediments. Used widely in Chinese medicine and cuisine, sea cucumbers are also a rich source of glucosamine ...

Menlo Park, Calif. — Two studies published in the February 3 issue of Nature demonstrate how the unique capabilities of the world's first hard X-ray free-electron laser—the Linac Coherent Light Source, located at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory—could revolutionize the study of life. In one study, an international research team used the LCLS to demonstrate a shortcut for determining the 3-D structures of proteins. The laser's brilliant pulses of X-ray light pulled structural data from tiny protein nanocrystals, avoiding the need to use ...

People who follow a vegan lifestyle — strict vegetarians who try to eat no meat or animal products of any kind — may increase their risk of developing blood clots and atherosclerosis or "hardening of the arteries," which are conditions that can lead to heart attacks and stroke. That's the conclusion of a review of dozens of articles published on the biochemistry of vegetarianism during the past 30 years. The article appears in ACS' bi-weekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Duo Li notes in the review that meat eaters are known for having a significantly higher ...

One of Mother Nature's latest gifts to medical science is stirring excitement with the discovery that the substance — obtained from a coral-reef inhabiting cyanobacterium — appears to be an ideal blueprint for developing new drugs for serious fractures, osteoporosis, and other bone diseases. That's the conclusion of a study on the substance, Largazole, in the journal ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters. By some estimates, more than half of today's medications are in Largazole's family, the "natural products." They come from trees, snails, scorpion venom, soil bacteria, other ...

As farmers in Hungary ponder spring planting on hundreds of acres of farmland affected by last October's red mud disaster, scientists are reporting that high alkalinity is the main threat to a bountiful harvest, not toxic metals. In a study in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology, they also describe an inexpensive decontamination strategy using the mineral gypsum, an ingredient in plaster. Erik Smolders and colleagues note that a dam burst at a factory processing aluminum ore, flooding the surrounding land with more than 700,000 cubic yards of a byproduct ...

Catnip, the plant that attracts domestic cats like an irresistible force, has proven 99 percent effective in repelling the blood-sucking flies that attack horses and cows, causing $2 billion in annual loses to the cattle industry. That's the word from a report published in ACS' biweekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Junwei Zhu and colleagues note that stable flies not only inflict painful bites, but also transmit multiple diseases. Cattle harried by these bloodsuckers may produce less meat and milk, have trouble reproducing, and develop diseases that can ...

Like espionage agents probing an enemy's fortifications, scientists are snooping out the innermost secrets of the amazing defense mechanisms that plants use to protect themselves from diseases. The effort — intended to discover ways of bolstering those natural defenses and enhance the safety and security of the global food supply — is the topic of an article in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS' weekly newsmagazine. C&EN Associate Editor Sarah Everts notes that plants use a battery of cunning mechanisms to protect themselves from disease. ...

LA JOLLA, Calif., February 1, 2011 – Stem cells are ideal tools to understand disease and develop new treatments; however, they can be difficult to obtain in necessary quantities. In particular, generating induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells can be an arduous task because reprogramming differentiated adult skin cells into iPS cells requires many steps and the efficiency is very low – researchers might end up with only a few iPS cells even if they started with a million skin cells. A team at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham) set out to improve ...

PORTLAND, Ore. February 1, 2011. Fact: The sex of some species of turtles is determined by the temperature of the nest: warm nests produce females, cooler nests, males. And although turtles have been on the planet for about 220 million years, scientists now report that almost half of the turtle species is threatened. Turtle scientists are working to understand how global warming may affect turtle reproduction. To bring attention to this and other issues affecting turtles, researchers and other supporters have designated 2011 as the Year of the Turtle. Why should we ...

The UA College of Engineering's Hybrid Dynamics and Control Laboratory is developing mathematical analysis and design methods that could radically advance the capabilities of unmanned aircraft and ground vehicles, as well as many other systems that rely on autonomous decision making. Researchers in the lab design computer control systems that may one day allow robotic surveillance aircraft to stay aloft indefinitely. These systems also might be used to safely guide aircraft and automobiles through small openings as they enter buildings. Or they could help airplanes and ...

A study led by the University of Zaragoza (UNIZAR) has studied precipitation trends in Spain's 10 hydrological basins over the 1946 to 2005 period. The results show that precipitation has declined overall between the months of March and June, reducing the length of the rainy season. The rains are heavier in October in the north west of the country. Since 1946, the average precipitation falling on Spanish hydrological basins has undergone "notable" changes. The researchers observed a widespread decline in March and June, above all in March (except in the basin of the Segura), ...

Frontotemporal dementia is caused by a breakdown of nerve cells in the frontal and temporal region of the brain (fronto-temporal lobe), which leads to, among other symptoms, a change in personality and behavior. The cause of some forms of frontotemporal dementia is a genetically determined reduction of a hormone-like growth factor, progranulin. Scientists around Dr. Anja Capell and Prof. Christian Haass have now shown that various drugs that are already on the market to treat malaria, angina pectoris or heart rhythm disturbances can increase the production of progranulin. ...

The spinach-eating cartoon character Popeye has much to teach us, new research from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet shows. The muscles' cellular power plants – the mitochondria – are boosted by nitrate, a substance found in abundance in vegetables such as lettuce, spinach and beetroot. For half a century, inorganic nitrate has been associated with negative health effects, but more recently, evidence of the contrary has mounted. In the 1990s, a research group at Karolinska Institutet demonstrated how the body can convert nitrate to NO, a molecule ...

Amsterdam, The Netherlands / Tokyo, Japan, 2 February 2011 – The Waseda University Institute of e-Government has released the 2011 Waseda University World e-Government Ranking, marking its seventh consecutive year of monitoring the development of e-Government worldwide. Singapore is once again at the top of the list. The complete list of the top 15 countries (economies) which have the most advanced development in e-government according to the Waseda Survey are: (1) Singapore, (2) USA, (3) Sweden, (4) Korea, (5) Finland, (6) Japan, (7) Canada, (8) Estonia, (9) Belgium, ...