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A new study takes advantage of genetic similarities between mammals and fruit flies by coupling a complex genetic screening technique in humans with functional validation of the results in flies. The new strategy, published by Cell Press on February 3rd in The American Journal of Human Genetics, has the potential to be an effective approach for unraveling genetically complex human disorders and providing valuable insights into human disease. Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) involve sifting through the complete set of DNA from many individuals to identify genetic ...

Ever since researchers devised a recipe for turning adult cells into cells that look and act like embryonic stem cells, there has been lingering doubt in the field about just how close to embryonic stem cells each of those cell lines really is at a molecular and functional level. Now, researchers reporting in the February 4th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, have developed a systematic way to lay those doubts about quality to rest. They have devised a method to quickly and comprehensively characterize those cells using a series of genomic assays, ...

While there is no doubt that the ethical controversy surrounding human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research has given rise to an uncertain policy environment, the true impact of years of frequent policy changes has not been fully assessed. Now, an article published by Cell Press on February 3rd in the journal Cell Stem Cell reports on a recent survey of several hundred stem cell scientists in the United States and begins to reveal the substantial negative impact that this uncertainty has had on them, including both those who work directly with hESCs and those who work with ...

A new study sheds light on why individuals who inherit a particular family of mutations have a high risk of developing a very aggressive form of breast cancer. The research, published by Cell Press on February 4th in the journal Cell Stem Cell, shows that breast tissue cells from these individuals make abnormal cell-fate decisions even before cancer develops and provides exciting new insights into the mechanisms behind one of the most lethal types of breast cancer. There are many forms of human breast cancer. Mutations in the BRCA1 tumor suppressor gene are associated ...

Sand dunes in a vast area of northern Mars long thought to be frozen in time are changing with both sudden and gradual motions, as revealed by images from a high-resolution camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO. These dune fields cover an area the size of Texas in a band around the planet at the edge of Mars' north polar cap. Although the new findings suggest they are among the most active landscapes on Mars, few changes in these dark-toned dunes had been detected before a campaign of repeated imaging by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Timing is everything in the long-standing arms race between the flowering plant Arabidopsis and Hyaloperonospora, a downy mildew pathogen. Duke University researchers have found that the little mustard plant cranks up its immune system in the morning to prepare for the greatest onslaught of infectious spores released by the mildew. It isn't news that plants know what time of day it is and change their activities accordingly, but this is the first time that a plant's defensive systems have been shown to cycle on a daily basis – even when pathogens aren't ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Complexity ever in the eye of its beholders, the animal with the most genes -- about 31,000 -- is the near-microscopic freshwater crustacean Daphnia pulex, or water flea. By comparison, humans have about 23,000 genes. Daphnia is the first crustacean to have its genome sequenced. The findings are part of a comprehensive report in this week's Science by members of the Daphnia Genomics Consortium, an international network of scientists led by the Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics (CGB) at Indiana University Bloomington and the U.S. Department of ...

BOULDER, Colo.—In a paradox typical of the quantum world, JILA scientists have eliminated collisions between atoms in an atomic clock by packing the atoms closer together. The surprising discovery, described in the Feb. 3 issue of Science Express,* can boost the performance of experimental atomic clocks made of thousands or tens of thousands of neutral atoms trapped by intersecting laser beams. JILA is jointly operated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado Boulder. JILA scientists demonstrated the new approach using ...

The potentially deadly bacterium Salmonella possesses a molecular machine that marshals the proteins it needs to hijack cellular mechanisms and infect millions worldwide. In a paper published Feb. 3 online in Science Express, Yale University researchers describe in detail how Salmonella, a major cause of food poisoning and typhoid fever, is able to make these proteins line in up in just the right sequence to invade host cells. "These mechanisms present us with novel targets that might form the basis for the development of an entirely new class of anti-microbials," ...

The study shows that in 2008, more than one in ten of the world's adult population was obese, with women more likely to be obese than men. An estimated 205 million men and 297 million adult women were obese - a total of more than half a billion adults worldwide. The proportion of the world's population with high blood pressure, or uncontrolled hypertension, fell modestly between 1980 and 2008. However, because of population growth and ageing, the number of people with uncontrolled hypertension rose from 600 million in 1980 to nearly 1 billion in 2008. High-income countries ...

SAN ANTONIO, Texas, U.S.A. (Feb. 4, 2011) — Like two unruly boys who need to be split up in class, a pair of protein molecules work together to speed up the toxic events of Alzheimer's disease. Researchers at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio today announced the discovery of the second molecule and said its identification could lead to drugs that disrupt the interaction, and thereby block or slow Alzheimer's onset or progression. Alzheimer's disease is an irreversible, progressive brain disease marked by deterioration of nerve cells and eventual complete loss of ...

A new way of splitting layered materials to give atom thin "nanosheets" has been discovered. This has led to a range of novel two-dimensional nanomaterials with chemical and electronic properties that have the potential to enable new electronic and energy storage technologies. The collaborative* international research led by the Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices (CRANN), Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, and the University of Oxford has been published in this week's Science. The scientists have invented a versatile method for creating these ...

The human body has a remarkable ability to heal itself. Due to the presence of dedicated stem cells, many organs can undergo continuous renewal. When an organ becomes damaged, stem cells in the organ are typically activated, producing new cells to regenerate the tissue. This activity of stem cells, however, has to be carefully controlled, as too much stem cell activity can cause diseases like cancer. Current research in stem cell biology is starting to unravel the control mechanisms that maintain a balance between efficient regeneration and proper control of stem cell function. ...

Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. – A constellation of different stem cell populations within our skin help it to cope with normal wear and tear. By constantly proliferating, the stem cells allow skin to replenish itself, allowing each cell to be replaced by a new one about once a month. But the normal cycle of division and death within one or more of these stem cell types can sometimes be derailed by genetic mishaps. Such events are believed to spawn carcinomas and other deadly skin cancers, which are the mostly frequently diagnosed cancers in the United States. Researchers ...

Surprising new evidence which overturns current theories of how humans colonised the Pacific has been discovered by scientists at the University of Leeds, UK. The islands of Polynesia were first inhabited around 3,000 years ago, but where these people came from has long been a hot topic of debate amongst scientists. The most commonly accepted view, based on archaeological and linguistic evidence as well as genetic studies, is that Pacific islanders were the latter part of a migration south and eastwards from Taiwan which began around 4,000 years ago. But the Leeds research ...

New research shows that the 2010 Amazon drought may have been even more devastating to the region's rainforests than the unusual 2005 drought, which was previously billed as a one-in-100 year event. Analyses of rainfall across 5.3 million square kilometres of Amazonia during the 2010 dry season, published tomorrow in Science, shows that the drought was more widespread and severe than in 2005. The UK-Brazilian team also calculate that the carbon impact of the 2010 drought may eventually exceed the 5 billion tonnes of CO2 released following the 2005 event, as severe droughts ...

WALNUT CREEK, Calif.—A tiny crustacean that has been used for decades to develop and monitor environmental regulations is the first of its kind to have its genetic code sequenced and analyzed—revealing the most gene-packed animal characterized to date. The information deciphered could help researchers develop and conduct real-time monitoring systems of the effects of environmental remediation efforts. Considered a keystone species in freshwater ecosystems, the waterflea, Daphnia pulex, is roughly the size of the equal sign on a keyboard. Its 200 million-base genome was ...

La Jolla, CA, February 2, 2011 – Embargoed by the journal Science until February 3, 2011, 2 PM, Eastern time - A team of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute has discovered a new way to stabilize proteins — the workhorse biological macromolecules found in all organisms. Proteins serve as the functional basis of many types of biologic drugs used to treat everything from arthritis, anemia, and diabetes to cancer. As described in the February 4, 2011 edition of the journal Science, when the team attached a specific oligomeric array of sugars called a "glycan" to ...

In a discovery that may lead to a new treatment for breast cancer that has spread to the bone, a Princeton University research team has unraveled a mystery about how these tumors take root. Cancer cells often travel throughout the body and cause new tumors in individuals with advanced breast cancer -- a process called metastasis -- commonly resulting in malignant bone tumors. What the Princeton research has uncovered is the exact mechanism that lets the traveling tumor cells disrupt normal bone growth. By zeroing in on the molecules involved, and particularly a protein ...

Australian scientists have successfully cleared a HIV-like infection from mice by boosting the function of cells vital to the immune response. A team led by Dr Marc Pellegrini from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute showed that a cell signaling hormone called interleukin-7 (IL-7) reinvigorates the immune response to chronic viral infection, allowing the host to completely clear virus. Their findings were released in today's edition of the journal Cell. Dr Pellegrini, from the institute's Infection and Immunity division, said the finding could lead to a cure for chronic ...

The human brain works incredibly fast. However, visual impressions are so complex that their processing takes several hundred milliseconds before they enter our consciousness. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt am Main have now shown that this delay may vary in length. When the brain possesses some prior information − that is, when it already knows what it is about to see − conscious recognition occurs faster. Until now, neuroscientists assumed that the processes leading up to conscious perception were rather rigid and that ...

One of the most significant socioeconomic changes in the history of humanity took place around 10,000 years ago, when the Near East went from an economy based on hunting and gathering (Mesolithic) to another kind on agriculture (Neolithic). Farmers rapidly entered the Balkan Peninsula and then advanced gradually throughout the rest of Europe. Various theories have been proposed over recent years to explain this process, and now physicists from the University of Girona (UdG) have for the first time presented a new model to explain how the Neolithic front slowed down as ...

Massive Art Multimedia in Austria and CoSi Elektronik in Germany have a history of collaboration on successful technical projects. A brainstorming session between their developers produced the idea of bringing together many aspects of the modern computing world and applying them specifically to the one group in society that is least likely to already feel those benefits - senior citizens. As with so many projects of this nature, the funding for development was out of reach of two SMEs. By facilitating the funding process EUREKA permitted the development of the project now ...

Conservationists across the United States are racing to discover a solution to White-Nose Syndrome, a disease that is threatening to wipe out bat species across North America. A review published in Conservation Biology reveals that although WNS has already killed one million bats, there are critical knowledge gaps preventing researchers from combating the disease. WNS is a fatal disease that targets hibernating bats and is believed to be caused by a newly discovered cold-adapted fungus, Geomyces destructans, which infects and invades the living skin of hibernating bats. ...