Biology & Aging

New tumor-killer shows great promise in suppressing cancers

NLN — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:49:39 +0000

Scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Lund University, Sweden, have bioengineered a novel molecule which has been proven to successfully kill tumour cells.

This molecule is based on a natural protein present in human breast milk, which has been found to have strong and wide-ranging tumour killing properties when bound to certain lipids. Lipids are organic molecules like amino acids and carbohydrates, made up of carbon and hydrogen, and help to store energy and to form biological membranes.

Subject:

Biology & Aging

Insight into the dazzling impact of insulin in cells

NLN — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:28:57 +0000

Australian scientists have charted the path of insulin action in cells in precise detail like never before. This provides a comprehensive blueprint for understanding what goes wrong in diabetes.

The breakthrough study, conducted by Sean Humphrey and Professor David James from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research, is now published in the early online edition of the prestigious journal Cell Metabolism.

Subject:

Biology & Aging

'Whodunnit' of Irish potato famine solved

NLN — Tue, 21 May 2013 12:37:58 +0000

It is the first time scientists have decoded the genome of a plant pathogen and its plant host from dried herbarium samples. This opens up a new area of research to understand how pathogens evolve and how human activity impacts the spread of plant disease.

Phytophthora infestans changed the course of history. Even today, the Irish population has still not recovered to pre-famine levels. "We have finally discovered the identity of the exact strain that caused all this havoc," says Hernán Burbano from the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology.

Subject:

Biology & Aging

Engineered microbes grow in the dark

NLN — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:40:29 +0000

Scientists at the University of California, Davis have engineered a strain of photosynthetic cyanobacteria to grow without the need for light. They report their findings today at the 113th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.

Subject:

Biology & Aging

Opportunistic pathogens evolve mostly harmlessly in healthy humans

NLN — Fri, 17 May 2013 21:01:10 +0000

Humans interact with bacteria almost every minute of our lives. Of the millions of these interactions, only a handful result in disease, and some bacteria only cause infections under certain conditions. In a recent PLOS ONE study, researchers probe these healthy human-bacterial relations in one particularly notorious pathogen as it spends the majority of its time in our bodies, doing no harm.

Subject:

Biology & Aging

Secret of efficient photosynthesis is decoded

NLN — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:45:51 +0000

MIT researchers find that the key to purple bacteria’s light-harvesting prowess lies in highly symmetrical molecules.

Purple bacteria are among Earth’s oldest organisms, and among its most efficient in turning sunlight into usable chemical energy. Now, a key to their light-harvesting prowess has been explained through a detailed structural analysis by scientists at MIT.

Subject:

Biology & Aging

How stem cells become organized into specific tissue

NLN — Fri, 10 May 2013 16:01:59 +0000

To eventually use stem cells in regenerative medicine, scientists need to understand how stem cells become organized into particular tissue patterns and shapes. With that in mind, researchers at USC recently found clues by studying the cellular and molecular basis of complex pigment patterns in bird feathers.

Subject:

Biology & Aging

Decline in snow cover spells trouble for many plants, animals

NLN — Fri, 10 May 2013 15:48:20 +0000

For plants and animals forced to tough out harsh winter weather, the coverlet of snow that blankets the north country is a refuge, a stable beneath-the-snow habitat that gives essential respite from biting winds and subzero temperatures.

But in a warming world, winter and spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere is in decline, putting at risk many plants and animals that depend on the space beneath the snow to survive the blustery chill of winter.

Subject:

Biology & Aging

A trick to fold proteins more quickly

NLN — Wed, 08 May 2013 15:52:26 +0000

To understand how proteins work it is important to know their three-dimensional shape, but also the way it is produced. We need to know, in other words, how the amino acid filament which makes up the proteins is capable of folding over itself to take on a specific shape.

Subject:

Biology & Aging

Tracking cell interactions in living bodies

NLN — Tue, 07 May 2013 13:19:37 +0000

Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine have developed a new technique to see how different types of cells interact in a living mouse.

Subject:

Biology & Aging

Plants 'talk' to plants to help them grow

NLN — Tue, 07 May 2013 03:04:47 +0000

Having a neighborly chat improves seed germination, finds research in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Ecology.

Even when other known means of communication, such as contact, chemical and light-mediated signals, are blocked chilli seeds grow better when grown with basil plants. This suggests that plants are talking via nanomechanical vibrations.

Subject:

Biology & Aging

Moore’s law and the origin of life: a study in demarcation

NLN — Sun, 05 May 2013 02:24:22 +0000

My most recent post was about the worthiness of so-called “demarcation” problems, such as reflections on what distinguishes science from philosophy, the latter from theology, and the former from pseudoscience.

Subject:

Biology & Aging

How pancreatic cancers metastasize

NLN — Sat, 04 May 2013 16:24:34 +0000

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have discovered that a protein found in the cells surrounding pancreatic cancers play a role in the spread of the disease to other parts of the body.

Subject:

Biology & Aging

Researchers may have found source of aging in the brain

NLN — Fri, 03 May 2013 13:02:51 +0000

While the search continues for the Fountain of Youth, researchers may have found the body’s “fountain of aging”: the brain region known as the hypothalamus.

Subject:

Biology & Aging

Binge eating may be based in biology

NLN — Thu, 02 May 2013 02:01:56 +0000

Female rats are much more likely to binge eat than male rats, according to new research that provides some of the strongest evidence yet that biology plays a role in eating disorders.

Subject:

Biology & Aging