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Gene Involved In Fanconi Anemia
Date: May-02-2012Scientists of KIT and the University of Birmingham have identified relevant new functions of a gene that plays a crucial role in Fanconi anemia, a life-threatening disease. The FANCM gene is known to be important for the stability of the genome. Now, the researchers found that FANCM also plays a key role in the recombination of genetic information during inheritance. For their studies, the scientists used thale cress as a model plant. Their results are newly published by the journal The Plant Cell. Stability of the genome is ensured by a series of mechanisms. If these are lacking, the risk of...
Violent Video Games Can Teach How To Shoot More Accurately And Aim For The Head
Date: May-02-2012Just 20 minutes of playing a violent shooting video game made players more accurate when firing a realistic gun at a mannequin - and more likely to aim for and hit the head, a new study found. Players who used a pistol-shaped controller in a shooting video game with human targets had 99 percent more completed head shots to the mannequin than did participants who played other video games, as well as 33 percent more shots that hit other parts of the body. In addition, the study found that participants who reported habitual playing of violent shooting games also were more accurate than others...
Psychoactive Medication Use Among Children In Foster Care
Date: May-02-2012A few months after the federal Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report on the use of psychoactive drugs by children in foster care in five states, a national study from PolicyLab at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia describes prescription patterns over time in 48 states. The updated findings show the percentage of children in foster care taking antipsychotics - a class of psychoactive drugs associated with serious side effects for children - continued to climb in the last decade. At the same time, a slight decline was seen in the use of other psychoactive medications,...
Media Multitasking Offers Emotional Boost But Could Be Detrimental To Performance
Date: May-02-2012People aren't very good at media multitasking - like reading a book while watching TV - but do it anyway because it makes them feel good, a new study suggests. The findings provide clues as to why multitasking is so popular, even though many studies show it is not productive. Researchers had college students record all of their media use and other activities for 28 days, including why they used various media sources and what they got out of it. The findings showed that multitasking often gave the students an emotional boost, even when it hurt their cognitive functions, such as studying....
Evidence Of Darwinian Selection Still Influencing Human Evolution
Date: May-02-2012New evidence proves humans are continuing to evolve and that significant natural and sexual selection is still taking place in our species in the modern world. Despite advancements in medicine and technology, as well as an increased prevalence of monogamy, research reveals humans are continuing to evolve just like other species. Scientists in an international collaboration, which includes the University of Sheffield, analysed church records of about 6,000 Finnish people born between 1760-1849 to determine whether the demographic, cultural and technological changes of the agricultural...
Researchers Create Molecule That Blocks Pathway Leading To Alzheimer's Disease
Date: May-02-2012UC Davis researchers have found novel compounds that disrupt the formation of amyloid, the clumps of protein in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease believed to be important in causing the disease's characteristic mental decline. The so-called "spin-labeled fluorene compounds" are an important new target for researchers and physicians focused on diagnosing, treating and studying the disease. The study, published in the online journal PLoS ONE, is entitled "The influence of spin-labeled fluorene compounds on the assembly and toxicity of the Aβ peptide." "We have found these small...
Lymphoma Therapy Could Deliver A Double Punch
Date: May-02-2012B cell lymphomas are a group of cancers of that originate in lymphoid tissue from B cells, the specialized immune cell type that produces antibodies. The development of B cell lymphoma is associated with several known genetic changes, including increased expression of MYC, a transcription factor that promotes cell growth and division. In this issue of the JCI, Andrei Thomas-Tikhonenko and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia report on their studies to better understand the molecular pathways that interact with MYC and contribute to B cell lymphoma development. Using...
News From The Journal Of Clinical Investigation: April 30, 2012
Date: May-02-2012METABOLISM: Driving the preference for fatty foods The World Health Organization recognizes obesity as global pandemic that threatens the health of millions of people. A number of factors contribute to the development of obesity, including complex changes in cellular pathways. Improving our understanding of the molecular events that contribute to obesity could potentially improve treatment options. Naim Akhtar Khan and fellow researchers at the Universite de Bourgogne in France recently experimentally addressed how signaling pathways in taste bud cells influence the detection of dietary fat....
Shedding Light On Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Date: May-02-2012University of Iowa biologists have advanced the knowledge of human neurodevelopmental disorders by finding that a lack of a particular group of cell adhesion molecules in the cerebral cortex - the outermost layer of the brain where language, thought and other higher functions take place - disrupts the formation of neural circuitry. Andrew Garrett, former neuroscience graduate student and current postdoctoral fellow at the Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine; Dietmar Schreiner, former postdoctoral fellow currently at the University of Basel, Switzerland; Mark Lobas, current neuroscience...
How Do Brain Cancer Cells Spread? New Study Finds Clues
Date: May-01-2012Glioblastoma is the most prevalent and deadliest type of brain cancer, and each year around 10,000 individuals in the U.S. are diagnosed with the disease. Now, researchers have found a protein that may provide insight into how the disease moves and invades nearby healthy brain tissue. In addition, the researchers suggest that a cost-effective FDA-approved drug already on the market could slow movement of these deadly cancer cells. The study is published May 1 in the online, open-access journal PloS Biology. Lead author of the study, Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, M.D., an associate professor of...
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