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Study: Donated embryos could result in more than 2,000 new embryonic stem cell lines

In a survey of more than one thousand infertility patients with frozen embryos, 60 percent of patients report that they are likely to donate their embryos to stem cell research, a level of donation that could result in roughly 2000 to 3000 new embryonic stem cell lines.

In August of 2001, less than two dozen embryonic stem cell lines were made eligible for federal research funding. Most scientists now agree that the eligible lines have proven inadequate in number and unsafe for transnational research.

Inbreeding Doesn't Necessarily Cause Deficiencies, Say Researchers

The team of Denis Réale, Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Université du Québec à Montréal, recently published some remarkable research findings. Reconstructing the genetic history of a population of mouflons descended from a single pair, the researchers demonstrated that the animals’ genetic diversity increased over time, contrary to what the usual models predict.

These results contradict the belief that a population descended from a small number of individuals will exhibit numerous deficiencies and reduced genetic diversity.

Study reveals insect 'supersociety'

How social or altruistic behavior evolved has been a central and hotly debated question, particularly by those researchers engaged in the study of social insect societies of ants, bees and wasps.

In these groups, this question of what drives altruism also becomes critical to further understanding of how ancestral or primitive social organizations (with hierarchies and dominance fights, and a poorly developed division of labor) evolve to become the more highly sophisticated networks found in some eusocial insect collectives called “superorganisms.”

Scientists Show Pleiotrophin Accelerates Breast Cancer

The significance of pleiotrophin (PTN) expression in breast cancer has not been clearly established but researchers at Scripps sau they have done it in a new study. These new findings could lead to a better understanding of the molecular pathogenesis of breast cancer and focus attention on PTN and its signaling pathway as possible targets for new cancer therapies.

Surprising Origin Of Cell's Internal "Highways"

Scientists have long thought that microtubules, part of the microscopic scaffolding that the cell uses to move things around in order to hold its shape and divide, originated from a tiny structure near the nucleus, called the centrosome.

Why Females Cheat

Women cheat on men for their own needs but superb starling females stray from their mates for the sake of their chicks, according to recent Cornell research. This reasoning includes being able to know if mates are too 'genetically similar' for breeding.

That gives 'doing it for the kids' a whole new layer of meaning. The study found that superb starling females (Lamprotornis superbus) cheat on their mates based on these factors:

The Unified Theory of Stem Cell Research

Researchers say they have discovered the gene that regulates stem cell ability to self-renew and to differentiate into highly specialized types. This means they could program stem cells to become certain cells or do repair automatically.

“You could call this a ‘theory-of-everything’ for stem cells,” said senior author Dr. Michael Rudnicki, Senior Scientist and Professor at the Ottawa Health Research Institute and the University of Ottawa, referring to the often-cited theory of everything for physics.

Curbing the Obesity Epidemic

The obesity epidemic has become a major public health problem in both industrialized countries and the developing world. Recent studies suggest that the major development of persistent adiposity is established already at pre-adolescence.

The fact that obesity is mainly determined before puberty implies that preschool detection of children at risk is essential along with individual prevention programs.

For women, less calcium from food is better for bones than more calcium from supplements

Women who get most of their daily calcium from food have healthier bones than women whose calcium comes mainly from supplemental tablets, say researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Surprisingly, this is true even though the supplement takers have higher average calcium intake.

Energy Goal: Practical On-Board Hydrogen Storage

Solving one of the biggest problems in commercialization of fuel-cell-powered automobiles is the goal of a new $1.88 million research project on on-board hydrogen storage at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory.

To be practical, researchers say, the hydrogen storage system must be able to hold enough of the fuel for a driving range of 300 miles before refilling; no current technology meets this goal within the constraints of allowable weight and volume for passenger cars.

Nanotube adhesive sticks better than a gecko's foot

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Akron have created synthetic “gecko tape” with four times the sticking power of the real thing.

The researchers describe a process for making polymer surfaces covered with carbon nanotube hairs. The nanotubes imitate the thousands of microscopic hairs on a gecko’s footpad, which form weak bonds with whatever surface the creature touches, allowing it to “unstick” itself simply by shifting its foot.

The Scottish Are Smarter Than The English, Study Says

While young people have been going to college in greater numbers over the past 20 years the Scottish higher education rate versus the English has been 'consistently and substantially' greater in Scotland, according to a unique study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

The project, led by Dr Linda Croxford with Professor David Raffe of the University of Edinburgh, found that while the Scottish system encouraged young people to study beyond the age of 16, middle class students took most advantage.

From Pygmy To Panda

Although it may sound like an oxymoron, a University of Iowa anthropologist and his colleagues report the first discovery of a skull from a "pygmy-sized" giant panda -- the earliest-known ancestor of the giant panda -- that lived in south China some two million years ago.

The ancestor of today's giant panda really was a pygmy giant panda, says Russell Ciochon, UI professor of anthropology. Previous discoveries of teeth and other remains made between 1985 and 2002 had failed to establish the animal's size.

Think genetic screening of embryos is foolproof? Think again

Embryos that are selected out as abnormal can still undergo chromosomal modifications, says Ms Tsvia Frumkin from the Racine IVF unit at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Centre in Israel.

These findings mean that the results of preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) for chromosomal abnormalities were not always reliable and should be interpreted with caution.

Genetic 'deserts' full of valuable information

Many of the areas of the human genome previously thought to be deserts are in fact teeming with life.

Most known human genes in the genome map are still incompletely annotated, says Professor Alexandre Reymond, from the Centre for Integrative Genomics, University of Lausanne, Switzerland and the Department of Genetic Medicine, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.