Body

DNA evidence lifted from the ancient bones and teeth of people who lived in Europe from the Late Pleistocene to the early Holocene -- spanning almost 30,000 years of European prehistory -- has offered some surprises, according to researchers who report their findings in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on Feb. 4, 2016. Perhaps most notably, the evidence shows a major shift in the population around 14,500 years ago, during a period of severe climatic instability.

Cells of our immune system kill pathogens by enclosing them in a compartment called the phagosome. The phagosome undergoes programmed maturation, where the pathogen is degraded. Intimately linked to this degradation is active transport of the phagosome inside cells by nanoscale "Motor" proteins such as Dynein and Kinesin, which are force generators for many kinds of biological movements.

Cancer cells kill off surrounding cells to make room to grow, according to new research from the University of Cambridge. Although the study was carried out using fruit flies, its findings suggest that drugs to prevent, rather than encourage, cell death might be effective at fighting cancer - contrary to how many of the current chemotherapy drugs work.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- One of the most common cancer-causing genes has continuously stymied researchers' efforts to develop treatments against it.

Now, researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have dug deeper and exposed a key interaction that may contribute to why mutations in KRAS lead to cancer.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Chronic inflammation in the gut increases the risk of colon cancer by as much as 500 percent, and now Duke University researchers think they know why.

Their new study points to a biomarker in the cellular machinery that could not only serve as an early warning of colon cancer, but potentially be harnessed to counteract advanced forms of the disease, the second-largest cause of cancer death in the U.S.

When seeking to protect themselves from viruses, some bacteria use a seemingly risky strategy: They wait until the invading virus has already begun to replicate. Research at The Rockefeller University shows how the microbes use two newly identified enzymes to fight off an infection even after delaying action.

DALLAS - Feb. 4, 2016 - Scientists at the Children's Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern (CRI) have pioneered a new method for conducting in-depth research on malignant tumors in patients, in the process discovering new complexities underlying cancer biology and overturning a nearly century-old perception about cancer metabolism.

Immunotherapy is one of the hottest emerging areas of cancer research. After all, using the body's own cells to fight cancer can be more effective and less invasive than flooding the entire system with toxic chemicals.

Yubin Zhou, Ph.D., assistant professor at the Center for Translational Cancer Research at the Texas A&M Health Science Center Institute of Biosciences & Technology, is studying how to use light to control the immune system and induce it to fight cancer.

Scientists have created a material which turns fluorescent if there are molecules from explosives in the vicinity. The discovery could improve e.g. airport security - and also it gives us an insight into a rather chaotic micro-world where molecules and atoms constantly are responding to their surroundings.

Unlike humans, dogs' noses are so sensitive that they can smell explosives in the vicinity. They can detect single molecules in the air, and thus they may be valuable helpers when it comes to detecting explosives.

The more of a certain kind of passion varsity athletes have for their sport, the more favourable their attitudes towards the use of performance enhancing drugs, or PEDs, according to a recent study.

Published in the Journal of Intercollegiate Sport, the paper is the first to show that passion levels can help predict a collegiate athlete's attitude towards performance enhancing drugs.

FRANKFURT Tracing distinct proteins in cells is like looking for a needle in a haystack. In order to localize proteins and decipher their function in living cells, researchers label them with fluorescent molecules. However, the delivery of protein markers is often insufficient. A group of researchers from the Goethe University, working in close collaboration with US colleagues, has now found a solution for this problem. In the current issue of Nature Communications, they report on a process that uses pressure to deliver chemical probes in a fine-tuned manner into living cells.

FRANKFURT. In contrast to animals, plants form new organs throughout their entire life, i.e. roots, branches, flowers and fruits. Researchers in Frankfurt wanted to know to what extent plants follow a pre-determined plan in the course of this process. In the renowned journal "Current Biology", they describe the growth of secondary roots of thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana). They have observed it cell by cell in a high-tech optical microscope and analysed it with computer simulations.

Increasing the level of a naturally-produced protein, called tristetraprolin (TTP), significantly reduced or protected mice from inflammation, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health. The results suggest that pharmaceutical compounds or other therapeutic methods that produce elevated levels of TTP in humans may offer an effective treatment for some inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and multiple sclerosis. The report appeared online Feb. 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Rising global temperatures may skew gender imbalance among the marine turtle population, according to new Florida State University research.

Florida State University Assistant Professor of Oceanography Mariana Fuentes and a team of Brazilian researchers have been examining Brazilian loggerhead turtles to see how rising temperatures affect that species.

The sex of marine hatchlings is influenced by incubating temperatures, and warmer temperatures produce a higher number of female hatchlings.

On November 11, 1954, Syuiti Mori turned out the lights on a small group of fruit flies. More than sixty years later, the descendents of those flies have adapted to life without light. These flies--a variety now known as "Dark-fly"--outcompete their light-loving cousins when they live together in constant darkness, according to research reported in the February issue of G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics. This competitive difference allowed the researchers to re-play the evolution of Dark-fly and identify the genomic regions that contribute to its success in the dark.