1. On Wednesday, May 15th, the House Committee on Natural Resources: Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife will hold a Legislative Hearing on H.R. 2532: To protect grizzly bear populations, and for other purposes, in the Longworth House Office Building 1324. We'd like to solicit an article examining how serious the issue is. Fee: $100
Nobody questions that the color of our eyes is encoded in our genes. When it comes to behavior the concept of "DNA as fate" quickly breaks down -- it's been long accepted that both genes and the environment shape human behavior. But just how much sway the environment holds over our genetic destiny has been difficult to untangle.
Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have found a clever way to sort one from the other: They compared the social behavior of children with Williams syndrome -- known for their innate drive to interact with people -- across cultures with differing social mores. Their study, published in a forthcoming issue of Developmental Science, demonstrates the extent of culture's stamp on social behavior.
A team of UCLA and California Institute of Technology chemists reports in the Jan. 25 issue of the journal Nature the successful demonstration of a large-scale, "ultra-dense" memory device that stores information using reconfigurable molecular switches. This research represents an important step toward the creation of molecular computers that are much smaller and could be more powerful than today's silicon-based computers.
The 160-kilobit memory device uses interlocked molecules manufactured in the UCLA laboratory of J.
Smokers with a damaged insula -- a region in the brain linked to emotion and feelings -- quit smoking easily and immediately, according to a study in the Jan. 26 issue of the journal Science.
The study provides direct evidence of smoking's grip on the brain.
A team led by biochemists at the University of California, San Diego has found what could be a long-elusive mechanism through which inflammation can promote cancer. The findings may provide a new approach for developing cancer therapies.
The study, published in the January 26 issue of the journal Cell, shows that what scientists thought were two distinct processes in cells—the cells’ normal development and the cells’ response to dangers such as invading organisms—are actually linked.
Estrogen is known to enhance the growth and migration of breast cancer cells. Now researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have found that estrogen also can shield breast cancer cells from immune cells.
In a study published online this week in Oncogene, the researchers report that estrogen induces the expression of an inhibitor that blocks immune cells' ability to kill tumor cells. This is the first study to identify estrogen's role in shielding breast cancer cells from the action of immune cells.
The researchers analyzed estrogen's role in the cascade of events that occurs when immune cells, called natural killer cells, encounter a tumor cell.
Homer's Cyclops might be myth, but a disorder that can cause babies to be born with only one eye is very real. Scientists from Cleveland, Ohio, and Paris, France, reached an important milestone in understanding one of the molecular causes of a rare, but serious birth defect, Holoprosencephaly.
In a study to appear in the February issue of The FASEB Journal, researchers describe findings that help explain why and how some fetal brains fail to develop two lobes, as well as why and how the related skull and facial defects occur. Using the information from this study, researchers will be able to pursue better approaches toward detecting, preventing, and treating this serious disorder.
The European Space Agency's gamma ray observatory Integral has caught the centre of our galaxy in a moment of rare quiet. A handful of the most energetic high-energy sources surrounding the black hole at the centre of the Galaxy had all faded into a temporary silence when Integral looked.
This unusual event is allowing astronomers to probe for even fainter objects and may give them a glimpse of matter disappearing into the massive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. The Galactic centre is one of the most dynamic places in our Galaxy.
A research team, led by UC Riverside’s Ludwig Bartels, is the first to design a molecule that can move in a straight line on a flat surface. It achieves this by closely mimicking human walking. The “nano-walker” offers a new approach for storing large amounts of information on a tiny chip and demonstrates that concepts from the world we live in can be duplicated at the nanometer scale – the scale of atoms and molecules,
An illustration from the lab of Ludwig Bartels of the walking molecule as it carries molecular packages. (Image courtesy of University of California - Riverside)
University of California, Riverside Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, Jiayu Liao played a pivotal role in the discovery of a small molecule that has been shown to control diabetes in mice and may pave the way to the development of easier treatment for adult-onset diabetes. This key molecule, identified as Boc5, can stimulate insulin function in response to high levels of glucose as well as reduce body weight by 20 percent. The discovery of this molecule that stimulates the production of the intestinal hormone glucagon-like peptide1 (GLP1), which metabolizes glucose, has been an extremely difficult goal for researchers in both academics and the pharmaceutical industry.
New research has identified the first genetic evidence of Africans having lived amongst "indigenous" British people for centuries. Their descendants, living across the UK today, were unaware of their black ancestry.
The University of Leicester study, funded by the Wellcome Trust and published today in the journal European Journal of Human Genetics, found that one third of men with a rare Yorkshire surname carry a rare Y chromosome type previously found only amongst people of West African origin.
The researchers, led by Professor Mark Jobling, of the Department of Genetics at the University of Leicester, first spotted the rare Y chromosome type, known as hgA1, in one individual, Mr. X. This happened whilst PhD student Ms.
From The Society For Neuroscience
WASHINGTON, DC January 23, 2007 - A new study on rats has identified a part of the brain's cortex that controls learned but not innate fear responses.
The results suggest that hyperactivity in a region of the prefrontal cortex might contribute to disorders of learned fear in humans, such as post-traumatic stress disorder and other anxiety disorders, say authors Kevin A. Corcoran, PhD, and Gregory Quirk, PhD, of the Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico.
Contact: Jennifer Fitzenberger
jfitzen@uci.edu
949-824-3969
University of California - Irvine
Learning slows physical progression of Alzheimer's disease
Study suggests keeping brain active may have significant therapeutic value
Irvine, Calif. -- Learning appears to slow the development of two brain lesions that are the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease, scientists at UC Irvine have discovered.
