SANTA CRUZ, CA--A 30,000-year-old finger bone found in a cave in southern Siberia came from a young girl who was neither an early modern human nor a Neanderthal, but belonged to a previously unknown group of human relatives who may have lived throughout much of Asia during the late Pleistocene epoch.
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BOSTON, Mass. (December 22, 2010) — The sequencing of the nuclear genome from an ancient finger bone found in a Siberian cave shows that the cave dwellers were neither Neandertals nor modern humans.
Scientists today published catalogs of the fruit fly and roundworm's functional genomic elements: DNA sequences in the genome that carry the instructions and determine which genes are turned on and off at various times in different cells.
In the past decade researchers have made astonishing progress in the rapid and accurate sequencing of genomes from all realms of life. Yet the listing of chemical base pairs has gotten far ahead of understanding how the information they contain becomes functional. Even the best-understood genomes conceal mysteries.
JUPITER, FL, December 22, 2010 – A scientist from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute has discovered a molecular switch that controls the synthesis of ribosomes. Ribosomes are the large machineries inside all living cells that produce proteins, the basic working units of any cell. These new findings offer a novel target for potential treatments for a range of diseases, including cancer.
The study is published in the December 24, 2010 edition of the Journal of Molecular Biology.
AURORA, Colo. (Dec. 22, 2010)—A class of drugs thought to kill cancer cells may in fact block "cross talk" between the cancer cell and normal immune cells, resulting in reduced cancer growth and spread—a discovery that could significantly alter the way cancer drugs are evaluated in the future.
Researchers at Cleveland Clinic's Genomic Medicine Institute have revealed multiple genetic discoveries that may permit easier diagnosis and disease management for Cowden syndrome patients who are predisposed to breast and kidney cancer.
The research, which could allow for earlier discovery of cancerous tumors, is published in the Dec. 22 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
December 21, 2010 — (BRONX, NY) — Two researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have found that our 98.6° F (37° C) body temperature strikes a perfect balance: warm enough to ward off fungal infection but not so hot that we need to eat nonstop to maintain our metabolism.
The only way to learn if your water source has hexavalent chromium is to check with your public water supplier and request a water quality report, said NJIT Professor Taha Marhaba, a civil/environmental engineer. Most municipal or city engineers should be able to provide such a report upon request. Additional information specifically about hexavalent chromium levels may also be available.
Why do people choose present consumption over their long-term financial interests? A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research finds that consumers have trouble feeling connected to their future selves.
"This willingness to forego money now and wait for future benefits is strongly affected by how connected we feel to our future self, who will ultimately benefit from the resources we save," write authors Daniel M. Bartels (Columbia Business School) and Oleg Urminsky (University of Chicago).
People who feel powerful are more likely to believe they can beat cancer if it's described in human terms, according to new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.
The study looks at anthropomorphism, or the tendency to attribute humanlike characteristics, intentions, and behavior to nonhuman objects. "The present research shows important downstream consequences of anthropomorphism that go beyond simple liking of products with humanlike physical features," write authors Sara Kim and Ann L. McGill (both University of Chicago).
People are happier when goods are more equally distributed, but equality makes people want to spend more to get ahead of their neighbors, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.
Adventure seekers are plunking down more than $50,000 to climb Mount Everest, but a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research finds that people who pay for transformative experiences often lack the communitarian spirit that usually defines such activities.