Protected areas are generally seen as a triumph for the preservation of nature, yet the reality on the ground is more complex.
Body
Scientists at Johns Hopkins have taken a less-is-more approach to designing effective drug treatments that are precisely tailored to disease-causing pathogens, such as viruses and bacteria, and cancer cells, any of which can trigger the body's immune system defenses.
DURHAM, N.C. – Chandra Tucker shines a blue light on yeast and mammalian cells in her Duke University lab and the edges of them start to glow. The effect is the result of a light-activated switch from a plant that has been inserted into the cell.
Researchers could use this novel "on-off switch" to control cell growth or death, grow new tissue or deliver doses of medication directly to diseased cells, said Tucker, an assistant research professor in the biology department at Duke.
MADISON -- They are the portals to the cell, gateways through which critical signals and chemicals are exchanged between living cells and their environments.
Scientists from the UK and Australia have seen the human immune system's assassin, a protein called perforin, in action for the first time. The UK team, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Wellcome Trust, is based at Birkbeck College where they used powerful electron microscopes to study the mechanism that perforin uses to punch holes in rogue cells. The research is published today (1800hrs, 31 October) in Nature.
A team of Melbourne and London researchers have shown how a protein called perforin punches holes in, and kills, rogue cells in our bodies. Their discovery of the mechanism of this assassin is published today in the science journal Nature.
"Perforin is our body's weapon of cleansing and death," says project leader Prof James Whisstock from Monash University.
DETROIT – The race of liver donors may affect recurrent hepatitis C in patients after liver transplant, according to a study by Henry Ford Hospital.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Saturday, Oct. 30, 2010 – Researchers at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center have reached an early, but important, milestone in the quest to grow replacement livers in the lab. They are the first to use human liver cells to successfully engineer miniature livers that function – at least in a laboratory setting – like human livers. The next step is to see if the livers will continue to function after transplantation in an animal model.
Women with dense breasts and no lobular involution were at a higher risk for developing breast cancer than those with non-dense breasts and complete involution, according to a study published online in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Apart from age, family history, and age at menarche, two additional factors associated with breast cancer risk include mammographic breast density and extent of lobular involution. Lobular involution is the physiological atrophy of the breast epithelium and is known to increase with increasing age.
ST. LOUIS -- Curcumin, a chemical that gives curry its zing, holds promise in preventing or treating liver damage from an advanced form of a condition known as fatty liver disease, new Saint Louis University research suggests.
LA JOLLA, CA – October 29, 2010 – For Immediate Release – A team from The Scripps Research Institute has revealed the first-ever pictures of the formation of cells' "protein factories." In addition to being a major technical feat on its own, the work could open new pathways for development of antibiotics and treatments for diseases tied to errors in ribosome formation. In addition, the techniques developed in the study can now be applied to other complex challenges in the understanding of cellular processes.
Dracula orchids tempt flies by masquerading as mushrooms. Goblin spiders lurk unseen in the world's leaf litter. The natural world is often just as haunting as the macabre costumes worn on city streets, as highlighted by two studies published this year by curators in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History, David Grimaldi and Norman Platnick.
DRACULA ORCHIDS
Biogeochemists have found new evidence linking "Snowball Earth" glacial events to the rise of early animals. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Study results appear in this week's issue of the journal Nature.
Boulder, CO, USA - The giant dragonflies of ancient Earth with wingspans of up to 70 centimeters (28 inches) are generally attributed to higher oxygen atmospheric levels in the atmosphere in the past. New experiments in raising modern insects in various oxygen-enriched atmospheres have confirmed that dragonflies grow bigger with more oxygen, or hyperoxia.
Researchers led by Vanderbilt's Roger Cone, Ph.D., have discovered a new member of a gene family that has powerful influences on pigmentation and the regulation of body weight.