Life Sciences
A newly discovered small molecule called IQ-1 plays a key role in preventing embryonic stem cells from differentiating into one or more specific cell types, allowing them to instead continue growing and dividing indefinitely, according to research performed by a team of scientists who have recently joined the stem-cell research efforts at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. Their findings are being published today in an early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
This discovery takes scientists another step closer to being…
Imagine the power of knowing the three-dimensional structures of all proteins. The 3D-structure can provide information about critical protein-protein interactions both from a global perspective as well as all the way down to the level of minuscule molecular and biochemical detail. In much the same way, structural information can reveal a lot about the protein’s evolutionary relationships and functions. Even to provide this information about all the proteins in one organism—its proteome—would offer a more global view of these relationships, but solving each structure individually would be a…
A newly discovered small molecule called IQ-1 plays a key role in preventing embryonic stem cells from differentiating into one or more specific cell types, allowing them to instead continue growing and dividing indefinitely, according to research performed by a team of scientists who have recently joined the stem-cell research efforts at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. Their findings are being published today in an early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
This discovery takes scientists another step closer to being…
People who develop dementia or Alzheimer's disease experience brain structure changes years before any signs of memory loss begin, according to a study published in the April 17, 2007, issue of Neurology®, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Researchers say these findings may help identify people at risk of developing mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which leads to Alzheimer's disease.
Researchers performed brain scans and cognitive tests on 136 people over the age of 65 who were considered cognitively normal at the beginning of the five-year study. Participants…
USC College computational biologist Peter Calabrese has developed a new model to simulate the evolution of so-called recombination hotspots in the genome.
Published March 5 in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the mathematical model and its associated software bring much-needed rigor to evolutionary investigations of how natural selection acts on individual genes, said Calabrese, a research assistant professor of biological sciences.
And, they may also aid the search for disease-associated genes within the human genome.
The new tools "are more…
In order to differentiate and specialize, stem cells require very specific environmental cues in a very specific order, and scientists have so far been unable to prod them to go through each of the necessary steps. But now, for the first time, a study in mice by Rockefeller University scientists shows that embryonic stem cells implanted in the brain appear to develop into fully differentiated granule neurons, the most plentiful neuron in the cerebellum. The findings were reported Feb. 20 in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
When differentiated embryonic…
I’m no kin to the monkey, no no,no
The monkey’s no kin to me, yeah yeah, yeah
I don’t know much about his ancestors,
But mine didn’t swing from a tree.
It seems so unbelievable
And yet they’re saying it's true.
They're teaching us about it in school now
That humans were monkeys once too.
Although it's so ridiculous.
They're teaching us now that it's true.
The teachers that came from a monkey
Would be better off in a zoo.
It seems so much more believable.
And surely, surely it's true.
That God made Man in His image.
No monkey story will do.
This monkey business has to go
Because it just…
Cuttlefish are well-known masters of disguise who use highly developed camouflage tactics to blend in almost instantaneously with their surroundings. These relatives of octopuses and squid are part of a class of animals called cephalopods and are found in marine habitats worldwide. Cephalopods use camouflage to change their appearance with a speed and diversity unparalleled in the animal kingdom, however there is no documentation to date that they use their diverse camouflage repertoire at night.
In a paper published in the April 2007 issue of The American Naturalist, MBL (Marine Biological…
For 100 million rodents a year: what are we getting?
According to two recent studies (Carbone 2004, Balcombe, 2005), the United States now leads the world in the consumption of yet one more thing: Rodents. Specifically, for our purposes, mice--the usage of which now tallies near 80 million per annum in the US. In fact, our usage has been soaring while consumption by the other big mouse user, the EU, has actually been shrinking, partly because of new EU regulations, and partly because of growing doubts about at least some of the mus's worthiness as a test animal for toxicity and…
Mouse lab culture
This is a very exciting new forum for me. I am working on a book about the rise of the mouse as the preeminent biological model for human disease, and one of the most challlenging aspects of the research is accessing what might be called blue collar lab culture--the guys who clean the auto-claving machines, run the routine PCR routines, pack and ship, etc. I wonder why that is? As most labs are run by people who pride themselves on being enlightened, it seems odd that there are so few labs whose labor force is organized. Perhaps this is because of the ad hoc nature of…