COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Researchers at Ohio State University have found a new way to study how enzymes move as they repair DNA sun damage -- and that discovery could one day lead to new therapies for healing sunburned skin.
Ultraviolet (UV) light damages skin by causing chemical bonds to form in the wrong places along the DNA molecules in our cells. Normally, other, even smaller molecules called photolyases heal the damage. Sunburn happens when the DNA is too damaged to repair, and cells die.
Re-vegetation seems like a beneficial strategy for conserving and restoring damaged ecosystems, and using a variety of species can help increase biodiversity in these systems. But what are the risks involved with introducing seeds from other locations to plants located near the damaged site? Introduced populations often hybridize with the local populations from the same species, which can result in "polluting" neighboring populations with genes that are poorly adapted to local conditions.
It is second nature for most of us that exercise protects against heart attack and stroke, but researchers have spent 30 years unraveling the biochemistry behind the idea. One answer first offered by researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center is that athletic hearts push blood through arteries with greater force, which alone triggers reactions that protect against dangerous clogs in blood vessels.
ITHACA, N.Y. – They haven't had sex in some 30 million years, but some very small invertebrates named bdelloid rotifers are still shocking biologists – they should have gone extinct long ago. Cornell researchers have discovered the secret to their evolutionary longevity: these rotifers are microscopic escape artists. When facing pathogens, they dry up and are promptly gone with the wind.
One of many reasons that attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings helps people with alcohol use disorders stay sober appears to be alleviation of depression. A team of researchers has found that study participants who attended AA meetings more frequently had fewer symptoms of depression – along with less drinking – than did those with less AA participation. The report will appear in the journal Addiction and has been release online.
Humans and human activities have clearly altered the Earth's landscape and oceans in countless ways, often to the detriment of other plants and animals. But a new report published online on January 28th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, shows just what a tangled food web we've woven. Two species of Mediterranean seabirds change their every move based on the activities of local fisheries and, in particular, the fish that people toss away. The seabirds' shifting movement patterns can be seen at the regional scale.
CHICAGO --- A researcher from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine has invented a novel way to halt and even reverse rheumatoid arthritis. He developed an imitation of a suicide molecule that floats undetected into overactive immune cells responsible for the disease.
Whimsically referred to as Casper the Ghost, the stealthy molecule causes the immune cells to self-destruct.
The approach, tested on mice, doesn't carry the health risks of current treatments.
A mandatory influenza vaccination policy improves immunization rates among health care workers, according to a recent study of a large health care organization. The finding comes from a study, now available online (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/650752), published in the February 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases.
A pioneering international study involving academics from the University of Sheffield has shown for the first time that it is possible to improve the eating skills and nutritional status of older people with dementia.
The study, which was published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and funded by the National Health Research Institutes of Taiwan, tested two separate intervention methods to assess the eating patterns of dementia patients in Taiwan.
LA JOLLA, Calif., January 27, 2010 -- Investigators at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham) have discovered a new way the cell surface protein, CD44, helps specific T helper (Th1) cells develop immunologic memory. Linda Bradley, Ph.D., Bas Baaten, Ph.D., and colleagues determined that without CD44, Th1 cells died off during their initial immune response and were unable to generate immunologic memory. This is the first time scientists have identified this unique CD44 function on Th1 cells, making the protein a potential target to treat a variety of diseases.
BETHESDA, Md. (Jan. 28, 2010) — Many of the health benefits of aerobic exercise are due to the most recent exercise session (rather than weeks, months and even years of exercise training), and the nature of these benefits can be greatly affected by the food we eat afterwards, according to a study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology (http://jap.physiology.org).
New research suggests that animals living at high latitudes grow better than their counterparts closer to the equator because higher-latitude vegetation is more nutritious. The study, published in the February issue of The American Naturalist, presents a novel explanation for Bergmann's Rule, the observation that animals tend to be bigger at higher latitudes.
The discovery of a major player in the body's regulation of iron levels should provide a new target for drugs that prevent common iron deficiency as well as rare, potentially deadly iron overload, researchers said.
Cardiff/Halle/S./Bern. The number of bee colonies in Central Europe has decreased over recent decades. In fact, the number of beekeepers has been declining in the whole of Europe since 1985. This is the result of a study that has now been published by the International Bee Research Association, which for the first time has provided an overview of the problem of bee colony decline at the European level. Until now there had only been the reports from individual countries available.
A study of animals visible to the naked eye and living in and on the seabed – the 'macrobenthos' – of the Straits of Magellan and Drake Passage will help scientists understand the biodiversity, biogeography and ecology of the Magellanic region.