Biosingularity

Archive for January 2008

Creative and noncreative problem solvers exhibit different patterns of brain activity

Posted by: Derya on: January 30, 2008

Why do some people solve problems more creatively than others? Are people who think creatively somehow different from those who tend to think in a more methodical fashion? These questions are part of a long-standing debate, with some researchers arguing that what we call “creative thought” and “noncreative thought” are not basically different. If this [...]

New MIT tool probes brain circuits

Posted by: Derya on: January 28, 2008

Researchers at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT report in the Jan. 24 online edition of Science that they have created a way to see, for the first time, the effect of blocking and unblocking a single neural circuit in a living animal. This revolutionary method allowed Susumu Tonegawa, Picower Professor of [...]

‘Telepathic’ Genes Recognize Similarities In Each Other

Posted by: Derya on: January 26, 2008

Genes have the ability to recognise similarities in each other from a distance, without any proteins or other biological molecules aiding the process, according to new research. This discovery could explain how similar genes find each other and group together in order to perform key processes involved in the evolution of species.

Newly Engineered Genetic Switches Enhance Production Of Proteins, Pharmaceuticals

Posted by: Derya on: January 26, 2008

Bacteria have evolved complex mechanisms called quorum sensing systems that provide for cell-to-cell communication, an adaptation that allows them to wait until their population grows large enough before mounting an attack on a host or competing for nutrients. Lianhong Sun, a chemical engineer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has engineered one of these systems [...]

Camera In A Pill Offers Cheaper, Easier Window To Your Insides

Posted by: Derya on: January 26, 2008

What if swallowing a pill with a camera could detect the earliest signs of cancer? The tiny camera is designed to take high-quality, color pictures in confined spaces. Such a device could find warning signs of esophageal cancer, the fastest growing cancer in the United States. A fundamentally new design has created a smaller endoscope [...]

The missing link between belly fat and heart disease?

Posted by: Derya on: January 26, 2008

By now, everyone knows that overweight people have a higher risk of heart attacks, strokes and other problems that arise from clogged, hardened arteries. And people who carry their extra weight around their waist – giving them a “beer belly” or an “apple” shape — have the highest risk of all.But despite the impact on [...]

JoVE: Youtube for scientists

Posted by: Derya on: January 25, 2008

I have been following JoVE is the Journal of Visualized Experiments, for some time. This very unique “video journal” focuses on publishing videos of experimental procedures in life sciences. Today I learned JoVE may soon be indexed on Pubmed, which will give it a credibility of peer reviewed scientific journal. Apparently they have also signed [...]

Elusive pancreatic stem cells found in adult mice

Posted by: Derya on: January 25, 2008

Just as many scientists had given up the search, researchers have discovered that the pancreas does indeed harbor stem cells with the capacity to generate new insulin-producing beta cells. If the finding made in adult mice holds for humans, the newfound progenitor cells will represent an obvious target for therapeutic regeneration of beta cells in [...]

Protein that controls hair growth also keeps stem cells slumbering

Posted by: Derya on: January 25, 2008

Like fine china and crystal, which tend to be used sparingly, stem cells divide infrequently. It was thought they did so to protect themselves from unnecessary wear and tear. But now new research from Rockefeller University has unveiled the protein that puts the brakes on stem cell division and shows that stem cells may not [...]

Scientists Create the First Synthetic Bacterial Genome

Posted by: Derya on: January 25, 2008

A team of 17 researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) has created the largest man-made DNA structure by synthesizing and assembling the 582,970 base pair genome of a bacterium, Mycoplasma genitalium JCVI-1.0. This work, published online today in the journal Science by Dan Gibson, Ph.D., et al, is the second of three key [...]

Low vitamin E levels associated with physical decline in elderly

Posted by: Derya on: January 23, 2008

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have found that a low concentration of vitamin E in the blood is linked with physical decline in older persons.

Stem-cell transplantation improves muscles in muscular dystrophy animal model

Posted by: Derya on: January 22, 2008

Using embryonic stem cells from mice, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have prompted the growth of healthy – and more importantly, functioning – muscle cells in mice afflicted with a human model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The study represents the first time transplanted embryonic stem cells have been shown to restore function to defective muscles [...]

Why fish oil is good for you

Posted by: Derya on: January 22, 2008

It’s good news that we are living longer, but bad news that the longer we live, the better our odds of developing late-onset Alzheimer’s disease.   Many Alzheimer’s researchers have long touted fish oil, by pill or diet, as an accessible and inexpensive “weapon” that may delay or prevent this debilitating disease. Now, UCLA scientists [...]

Programming Biomolecular Self-Assembly Pathways

Posted by: Derya on: January 20, 2008

Nature knows how to make proteins and nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) dance to assemble and sustain life. Inspired by this proof of principle, researchers at the California Institute of Technology have demonstrated that it is possible to program the pathways by which DNA strands self-assemble and disassemble, and hence to control the dynamic function [...]

Scientists restore walking after spinal cord injury

Posted by: Derya on: January 19, 2008

Spinal cord damage blocks the routes that the brain uses to send messages to the nerve cells that control walking. Until now, doctors believed that the only way for injured patients to walk again was to re-grow the long nerve highways that link the brain and base of the spinal cord. For the first time, [...]

People not always needed to alleviate loneliness

Posted by: Derya on: January 19, 2008

New research at the University of Chicago finds evidence for a clever way that people manage to alleviate the pain of loneliness: They create people in their surroundings to keep them company. “Biological reproduction is not a very efficient way to alleviate one’s loneliness, but you can make up people when you’re motivated to do [...]

Contact lenses with circuits, lights a possible platform for superhuman vision

Posted by: Derya on: January 18, 2008

Movie characters from the Terminator to the Bionic Woman use bionic eyes to zoom in on far-off scenes, have useful facts pop into their field of view, or create virtual crosshairs. Off the screen, virtual displays have been proposed for more practical purposes – visual aids to help vision-impaired people, holographic driving control panels and [...]

Engineers create carbon nanopipettes that are smaller than cells and measure electric current

Posted by: Derya on: January 16, 2008

University of Pennsylvania engineers and physicians have developed a carbon nanopipette thousands of times thinner than a human hair that measures electric current and delivers fluids into cells. Researchers developed this tiny carbon-based tool to probe cells with minimal intrusion and inject fluids without damaging or inhibiting cell growth.    

Molecular Biology Visualization of DNA (Animation)

Posted by: Derya on: January 15, 2008

This is a very informative animation of how DNA is packaged and replicated within the cell nucleus.  [Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UoKYGKxxMI] 

Lipoic acid could reduce atherosclerosis, weight gain

Posted by: Derya on: January 15, 2008

A new study done with mice has discovered that supplements of lipoic acid can inhibit formation of arterial lesions, lower triglycerides, and reduce blood vessel inflammation and weight gain – all key issues for addressing cardiovascular disease. Although the results cannot be directly extrapolated beyond the laboratory, researchers report that “they strongly suggest that lipoic [...]

Nanotechnology innovation may revolutionize gene detection in a single cell

Posted by: Derya on: January 14, 2008

Scientists at Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute have developed the world’s first gene detection platform made up entirely from self-assembled DNA nanostructures. The results, appearing in the January 11 issue of the journal Science, could have broad implications for gene chip technology and may also revolutionize the way in which gene expression is analyzed in [...]

Biohacking and programming DNA

Posted by: Derya on: January 14, 2008

Biological engineering does not have to be confined to the laboratories of high-end industry laboratories. Rather, it is desirable to foster a more open culture of biological technology. This talk is an effort to do so; it aims to equip you with basic practical knowledge of biological engineering.  

Scientists find that culture influences brain function

Posted by: Derya on: January 14, 2008

People from different cultures use their brains differently to solve the same visual perceptual tasks, MIT researchers and colleagues report in the first brain imaging study of its kind. Psychological research has established that American culture, which values the individual, emphasizes the independence of objects from their contexts, while East Asian societies emphasize the collective [...]

Beating Heart Created In Laboratory: Method May Revolutionize How Organ Tissues Are Developed

Posted by: Derya on: January 13, 2008

By using a process called whole organ decellularization, scientists from the University of Minnesota Center for Cardiovascular Repair grew functioning heart tissue by taking dead rat and pig hearts and reseeding them with a mixture of live cells. The research will be published online in the January 13 issue of Nature Medicine.

Aging gracefully requires taking out the trash

Posted by: Derya on: January 13, 2008

Suppressing a cellular cleanup-mechanism known as autophagy can accelerate the accumulation of protein aggregates that leads to neural degeneration. In an upcoming issue of Autophagy, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies report for the first time that the opposite is true as well: Boosting autophagy in the nervous system of fruit flies prevented [...]

Monkeys can perform mental addition

Posted by: Derya on: January 13, 2008

Researchers at Duke University have demonstrated that monkeys have the ability to perform mental addition. In fact, monkeys performed about as well as college students given the same test. The findings shed light on the shared evolutionary origins of arithmetic ability in humans and non-human animals, according to Assistant Professor Elizabeth Brannon, Ph.D. and Jessica [...]

Researchers create mathematical model of fruit fly eyes

Posted by: Derya on: January 12, 2008

Many researchers have tried to create a mathematical model of how cells pack together to form tissue, but most models have many different complicated factors, and no model is universal. Researchers at Northwestern University have now created a functional equation — using only two parameters — to show how cells pack together to create the [...]

10-fold life span extension reported in simple organism

Posted by: Derya on: January 11, 2008

Biologists have created baker’s yeast capable of living to 800 in yeast years without apparent side effects. The basic but important discovery, achieved through a combination of dietary and genetic changes, brings science closer to controlling the survival and health of the unit of all living systems: the cell.

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) song by Scientists for Better PCR

Posted by: Derya on: January 11, 2008

This is “The PCR Song” by “Scientists for a Better PCR”. It was done by the good folks at Bio-Rad to promote their 1000 Series Thermal Cyclers (a pcr machine). This is probably the best geek ad  and will provide laughs to all (especially those who remember when pcr meant dipping your samples in individual [...]

New clinical trial results show how personalized medicine will alter treatment of genetic disorders

Posted by: Derya on: January 11, 2008

One of the nation’s pre-eminent genetic researchers, Eric Hoffman, PhD, of Children’s Research Institute at Children’s National Medical Center, predicts that in relatively short order, medicine’s next innovation–individualized molecular therapies–will have the unprecedented ability to treat muscular dystrophies, and other disorders.

Genomic screen nets hundreds of human proteins exploited by HIV

Posted by: Derya on: January 11, 2008

In some ways, HIV resembles a minimalist painter, using a few basic components to achieve dramatic effects. The virus contains just nine genes encoding 15 proteins, which wreak havoc on the human immune system. But this bare bones approach could have a fatal flaw. Lacking robust machinery, HIV hijacks human proteins to propagate, and these [...]

Eat less or exercise more? Either way leads to more youthful hearts

Posted by: Derya on: January 11, 2008

Overweight people who lose a moderate amount of weight get an immediate benefit in the form of better heart health, according to a study conducted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. And the heart improvements happen whether that weight is shed by eating less or exercising more.

Drug that targets cannabinoid receptors cuts appetite, burns more energy

Posted by: Derya on: January 9, 2008

The first clinical studies of an experimental drug have revealed that obese people who take it for 12 weeks lose weight, even at very low doses. Short-term studies also suggest that the drug, called taranabant—the second drug designed to fight obesity by blocking cannabinoid receptors in the brain—causes people to consume fewer calories and burn [...]

New insight into factors that drive muscle-building stem cells

Posted by: Derya on: January 9, 2008

A report in the January issue of Cell Metabolism, a publication of Cell Press, provides new evidence explaining how stem cells known as satellite cells contribute to building muscles up in response to exercise. These findings could lead to treatments for reversing or improving the muscle loss that occurs in diseases such as cancer and [...]

Oatmeal’s health claims strongly reaffirmed, science shows

Posted by: Derya on: January 8, 2008

A new scientific review of the most current research shows the link between eating oatmeal and cholesterol reduction to be stronger than when the FDA initially approved the health claim’s appearance on food labels in 1997.

Novel mechanism for long-term learning identified

Posted by: Derya on: January 8, 2008

Practice makes perfect — or at least that’s what we’re told as we struggle through endless rounds of multiplication tables, goal kicks and piano scales — and it seems, based on the personal experience of many, to be true. That’s why neuroscientists have been perplexed by data showing that at the level of individual synapses, [...]

Researchers find key to avian flu transmission in humans

Posted by: Derya on: January 8, 2008

MIT researchers have uncovered a critical difference between flu viruses that infect birds and humans, a discovery that could help scientists monitor the evolution of avian flu strains and aid in the development of vaccines against a deadly flu pandemic. The researchers found that a virus’s ability to infect humans depends on whether it can [...]

4 health behaviors can add 14 extra years of life

Posted by: Derya on: January 8, 2008

People who adopt four healthy behaviours – not smoking; taking exercise; moderate alcohol intake; and eating five servings of fruit and vegetables a day – live on average an additional fourteen years of life compared with people who adopt none of these behaviours, according to a study published in the open access journal PLoS Medicine.


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