African societies, including those of the Bwaba of Burkina Faso and the Bassar of northern Togo, consider certain natural sites located on their territory as sacred. With each of these places these communities associate supernatural beings, kinds of spirits, that they have to come to terms with.
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Technical advances over the past 50 years have allowed improved knowledge to be gained of the properties of sea water at great depths. Yet the first centimetres of the ocean remain its least well known part. They are difficult to sample and study owing to the mixing the oceanographic vessel provokes between this superficial layer and the deeper strata of water. Nevertheless, a whole ecosystem exists within this layer, carrying numerous living organisms like bacteria, zooplankton and larger animals such as flying fish, which feed and reproduce in it.
Evidence gathered from time-lapse recordings of the formation of early embryos (blastocysts) in the laboratory has revealed why embryos created via IVF and undergoing extended culture are more likely to develop into twins than those created via natural conception. Furthermore, the research has shown that the culture in which the IVF embryos are formed is possibly responsible for the embryos dividing into twins.
People who have high cholesterol levels may be much more susceptible to a particular disease transmitted by the bites of ticks, a new study in mice suggests.
Scientists infected mice with Anaplasma phagocytophilum, the bacterium that causes human granulocytic anaplasmosis (HGA), a disease with flu-like symptoms. Bacteria levels were 10 times greater in mice that were genetically predisposed to high cholesterol levels and that were also fed a high-cholesterol diet.
Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is a form of nonmelanoma skin cancer, which is the most common type of human malignancy with over 1 million new cases in the USA each year.
In the July 2 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, two separate studies by research teams at Glasgow University and Baylor College of Medicine uncover 2 previously unidentified regulators of SCC development, providing insights into the development of this potentially lethal disease.
Cornell researchers have answered a fundamental question about how two strands of DNA, known as a double helix, separate to start a process called replication, in which genes copy themselves.
The research, published in the current issue of the journal Cell, examined the role of an enzyme called a helicase, which plays a major role in separating DNA strands so that replication of a single strand can occur.
We’ve all wondered how a seemingly healthy person can actually be at high risk for heart disease or a heart attack. Now researchers have uncovered a new clue to this mystery. The culprit: myeloperoxidase (MPO), a protein secreted by white blood cells that both signals inflammation and releases a bleach-like substance that damages the cardiovascular system.
On school days, teen boys who play video games appear to spend less time reading and teen girls who play video games appear to spend less time doing homework than those who do not play video games, according to a report in the July issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. Overall, video game players did not spend less time than non-video game players interacting with parents and friends.
A team of scientists from WWF and Conservation International (CI) has discovered the world’s largest known population of grey-shanked doucs (Pygathrix cinerea), increasing chances that the endangered monkey can be saved from extinction.
University of Oregon biologists studying a common ocean-dwelling worm have uncovered potentially fundamental insights into the evolutionary origin of genetic mechanisms, which when compromised in humans play a role in many forms of cancer.
Their research, appearing in the July issue of the journal Developmental Cell, also increases the visibility of a three-year effort at the UO to promote use of the bristle worm Platynereis dumerilii as a model organism for the study of evolutionary origins of cell types and animal forms.
One of the fundamental traits of a tumor – how it avoids the immune system – might become its greatest vulnerability, according to researchers from the University of Southern California. Their findings, demonstrated in human breast and colorectal cancers, indicate that a technique for determining a tumor’s “immune signature,” could be useful for diagnosing and treating specific cancers.
According to a pilot study, pomegranate juice was found to have beneficial effects on erectile dysfunction (ED), a disorder that affects 1 in 10 men worldwide and 10 to 30 million men in the United States alone.
ED can be caused by several factors, including arterial plaque, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, nerve damage, endocrine imbalance or depression. Ultimately, ED is a condition that affects the blood flow to the penis during sexual stimulation.
A team of biomedical engineers at Virginia Tech and the University of California at Berkeley has developed a new minimally invasive method of treating cancer, and they anticipate clinical trials on individuals with prostate cancer will begin soon.
The process, called Irreversible Electroporation (IRE), was invented by two engineers, Rafael V. Davalos, a faculty member of the Virginia Tech–Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Science (SBES), and Boris Rubinsky, a bioengineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Professor Herbert Herzog, Director of the Neuroscience Research Program at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, together with scientists from the US and Slovakia, have shown that neuropeptide Y (NPY), a molecule the body releases when stressed, can ‘unlock’ Y2 receptors in the body’s fat cells, stimulating the cells to grow in size and number. By blocking those receptors, it may be possible to prevent fat growth, or make fat cells die.
In the last 40 years, scientists have perfected ways to determine the knot-like structure of enzymes, but they’ve been stumped trying to translate the structure into an understanding of function – what the enzyme actually does in the body. This puzzle has hindered drug discovery, since many of the most successful drugs work by blocking enzyme action.