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Our brains can correct us if we make mistakes interpreting the emotions of others
Date: Oct-14-2013When we are sad the world seemingly cries with us. On the contrary, when we are happy everything shines and all around people's faces seem to rejoyce with us. These projection mechanisms of one's emotions onto others are well known to scientists, who believe they are at the core of the ability to interpret and relate to others. In some circumstances, however, this may lead to gross mistakes (called egocentricity bias in the emotional domain EEB). To avoid them cerebral mechanisms are activated, about which little is known...
In vivo observation of genes
Date: Oct-14-2013Certain parts of DNA are highly mobile and their dynamic motion participates in controlling gene expression. The research team working under Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla, an Inserm research director at the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology (Inserm/CNRS/University of Strasbourg), has just developed a method of observing the organisation and movements of the genome in time and space. The researchers succeeded in marking then monitoring parent genes during cell division...
Experiment explores innate visual behavior in mice
Date: Oct-14-2013When you're a tiny mouse in the wild, spotting aerial predators - like hawks and owls - is essential to your survival. But once you see an owl, how is this visual cue processed into a behavior that helps you to avoid an attack? Using an experimental video technique, researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have now developed a simple new stimulus with which they can spur the mouse's escape plans. This new stimulus allows the researchers to narrow down cell types in the retina that could aid in the detection of aerial predators...
Kissing plays a role in assessing a potential partner
Date: Oct-14-2013What's in a kiss? A study by Oxford University researchers suggests kissing helps us size up potential partners and, once in a relationship, may be a way of getting a partner to stick around. 'Kissing in human sexual relationships is incredibly prevalent in various forms across just about every society and culture,' says Rafael Wlodarski, the DPhil student who carried out the research in the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University. 'Kissing is seen in our closest primate relatives, chimps and bonobos, but it is much less intense and less commonly used...
Epstein-Barr virus-associated diseases and cancer
Date: Oct-14-2013You might not know it, but most of us are infected with the herpesvirus known as Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). For most of us, the virus will lead at worst to a case of infectious mononucleosis, but sometimes, and especially in some parts of the world, those viruses are found in association with cancer. Now, researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports have found that the difference between a relatively harmless infection and a cancer-causing one lies at least partly in the viral strain itself...
Gene identified that is essential for normal nerve development
Date: Oct-14-2013Our ability to detect heat, touch, tickling and other sensations depends on our sensory nerves. Now, for the first time, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have identified a gene that orchestrates the crucially important branching of nerve fibers that occurs during development. The findings were published online in the journal Cell. The research focuses on dendrites, the string-like extensions of sensory nerves that penetrate tissues of the skin, eyes and other sensory organs...
Disease diagnostics and therapeutics - a potential role for super-enhancers
Date: Oct-14-2013Having recently discovered a set of powerful gene regulators that control cell identity in a few mouse and human cell types, Whitehead Institute scientists are now showing that these regulators - which they named "super-enhancers" - act across a vast array of human cell types and are enriched in mutated regions of the genome that are closely associated with a broad spectrum of diseases...
FNDC5/irisin produced during exercise may augment the brain's natural anti-degeneration pathways
Date: Oct-14-2013Research has shown that exercise is good for the brain. Now investigators have identified a molecule called irisin that is produced in the brain during endurance exercise and has neuroprotective effects. Researchers were able to artificially increase the levels of irisin in the blood to activate genes involved in learning and memory. The findings, published online in the Cell Press journal Cell Metabolism, may be useful for designing drugs that utilize this exercise-induced molecule to guard against neurodegenerative diseases and improve cognition in the aging population...
How the body's muscles accidentally fall asleep while awake - a debilitating sleep disorder
Date: Oct-14-2013Normally muscles contract in order to support the body, but in a rare condition known as cataplexy the body's muscles "fall asleep" and become involuntarily paralyzed. Cataplexy is incapacitating because it leaves the affected individual awake, but either fully or partially paralyzed. It is one of the bizarre symptoms of the sleep disorder called narcolepsy. "Cataplexy is characterized by muscle paralysis during cognitive awareness, but we didn't understand how this happened until now, said John Peever of the University of Toronto's Department of Cell & Systems Biology...
Gene variation that offers skin protection from sun damage may increase risk for testicular cancer
Date: Oct-14-2013A Ludwig Cancer Research study published in Cell identifies a common mutation that dramatically increases the risk for testicular cancer - and describes a likely molecular mechanism by which it exerts that effect. The researchers also suggest why, despite its potential lethality, the genetic variation has been favored by natural selection to become common in light-skinned people. It appears this mutation might aid the tanning of Caucasian skin in response to sunlight, protecting it from UV radiation, which can burn and cause cancer...
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