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A Better Way To 'Spell Check' Gene Sequences
Date: May-23-2012A PhD student from CSIRO and the University of Queensland has found a better way to 'spell check' gene sequences and help biologists better understand the natural world. The student, Lauren Bragg, has contributed to the May issue of the prestigious journal Nature Methods highlighting her new approach and its software implementation called Acacia. Acacia analyses the output of next-generation gene sequencing instruments which read the four-letter alphabet of As, Cs, Ts and Gs - the 'bases' that code for DNA and spell out the genes of different living organisms. Acacia specifically applies to...
The Effects Of Social Status On Wound Healing, Death And Disease
Date: May-23-2012Turns out it's not bad being top dog, or in this case, top baboon. A new study by University of Notre Dame biologist Beth Archie and colleagues from Princeton University and Duke University finds that high-ranking male baboons recover more quickly from injuries and are less likely to become ill than other males. Archie, Jeanne Altman of Princeton and Susan Alberts of Duke examined health records from the Amboseli Baboon Research Project in Kenya. They found that high rank is associated with faster wound healing. The finding is somewhat surprising, given that top-ranked males also experience...
Bluetooth Monitoring For Fetal Heart
Date: May-22-2012An inexpensive and accurate fetal heart rate monitoring system has been developed by researchers in India using Bluetooth technology. The study will appear in the International Journal of Computers in Healthcare. Fetal phonocardiography is the modern day version of the stethoscope in ante-natal baby care. However, Vijay Chourasia of the LNM Institute of Information Technology in Jaipur and Anil Kumar Tiwari of the Indian Institute of Technology Rajasthan, in Jodhpur, adapted this system to use Bluetooth. According to the researchers, the new system will allow fetal heart monitoring to be...
Rare Genetic Immune Disease XLP2 Examined
Date: May-22-2012Researchers have taken an important step in understanding a rare genetic immune disorder which affects male children. Using biochemical analyses, the team was able to map how the XIAP protein activates a vital component of the immune defense system, specifically the component that fights bacterial infections in the gastro-intestinal system. The study, conducted by researchers at The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research at the University of Copenhagen, is published in Molecular Cell. Mads Gyrd-Hansen, Associate Professor from The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein...
When You Eat Is As Important As What You Eat
Date: May-22-2012When you eat may be just as significant as what you eat, say researchers at Salk Institute for Biological Studies. The study is published in the Cell Press journal Cell Metabolism. The researchers put two groups of mice on a high-fat diet - one group were restricted to eating for 8 hours per day, while the other group could eat around the clock. The team found that although mice on the restricted eating schedule consumed the same amount of food as the other group of mice, they were protected against obesity and other metabolic illnesses. According to the researchers, this finding indicates...
Mental Distraction Provides Pain Relief
Date: May-22-2012A new study reveals that mental distractions can reduce the amount of pain an individual experiences. The study appears online in Current Biology. The researchers asked study participants to complete either a difficult or easy memory task while a painful level of heat was applied to their arms. Both tasks required participants to remember letters. They found that participants who completed the harder memory task experienced less pain. In addition, the team used high-resolution spinal fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) and found that the lower levels of pain were linked with reduced...
Can Oxygen Help Chronic Heart Failure Patients?
Date: May-22-2012Around 669,000 people in the UK over the age of 45 years suffer from chronic heart failure (CHF), a condition in which the heart is too weak to efficiently pump the blood around the body. CHF is commonly characterized by breathlessness and can be worse when the patient is at rest sleeping. Despite conclusive evidence in terms of its efficiency, doctors frequently prescribe home oxygen therapy (HOT) to treat CHF symptoms, which can be inconvenient for patients, as well as expensive. In addition, symptoms of breathlessness in patients with CHF are not always related to low blood oxygen levels....
Thousands Of Genes Influenced By RNA Modification
Date: May-22-2012A new discovery by researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College published in the May 17 edition of the journal Cell once again rewrites scientific textbooks. Only 10 years ago, epigenetic researchers had to abandon the long-held belief that DNA consists of just four bases when they discovered that chemically modified bases are, in fact, abundant components of the human genome. The new discovery, related to RNA, is similar to DNA in carrying genetic information and their method of expression, but researchers have now identified a novel base modification in RNA that will revolutionize our...
Prochymal - First Stem Cell Drug Approved
Date: May-22-2012For the first time in history a stem cell drug has been approved for market authorization. Prochymal® (remestemcel-L) is also the first drug to be approved for the treatment of acute graft-vs-host disease (GvHD) in children, a devastating complication of bone marrow transplantation that kills almost 80% of all affected children, many of which just weeks after they have been diagnosed. GvHD is the leading cause of transplant-related mortality, caused by an immunologic attack. Severe GvHD can cause blistering of the skin, intestinal hemorrhage and liver failure and is extremely painful with...
Modern Parallel Found In Famous Case In 1848 Of Man With Brain Injury
Date: May-22-2012Phineas Gage's miraculous survival after an explosion drove a 13-pound, 3-foot-7-inch rod into his left cheek and out of the top of his head in 1848 made him the most famous case in the history of neuroscience based on his survival of this horrific accident, which destroyed most of his left frontal lobe, but also because of the impact his profound injury had on his personality and behavior. According to his friends, Gage changed from being a good-natured 25-year-old to being fitful, disrespectful and profane, a person who was "no longer Gage." Since Gage's accident, numerous scientists have...
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