Body

In a novel mathematical model that reproduces sleep patterns for multiple species, an international team of researchers has demonstrated that the neural circuitry that controls the sleep/wake cycle in humans may also control the sleep patterns of 17 different mammalian species.

We've all experienced the strong heartbeat that accompanies emotions such as fear and rage. But can the body's natural response to these emotions be used to combat heart failure? Results of a study published online today in the journal Circulation Research present a strong case.

In the study, scientists from the University of Rochester Medical Center found that two experimental drugs have the potential to restore pumping strength to failing hearts in part by harnessing the fight-or-flight response that makes hearts beat stronger.

This is a tutorial on how tissue-engineered rat lung is transplanted.

(Photo Credit: Yale University, Yale School of Medicine)

This video shows how lung tissue is engineered.

Through textures, shapes, weights and temperatures, the sense of touch influences both our thoughts and behavior.

In a series of six experiments documented in the June 25 issue of the journal Science, a Yale-led team of psychologists demonstrated how dramatically our sense of touch affects how we view the world.

Retinitis pigmentosa affects over one million people worldwide and is manifested by a progressive loss of sight, eventually leading to blindness. Retinitis pigmentosa is a form of inherited retinal degeneration that affects the light-sensitive cells : photoreceptors. Photoreceptors are a special type of neuron which convert light into nervous impulses. These impulses are then processed by the retina and transmitted along the nerve fibres to the brain. There are two types of photoreceptors: rods and cones.

A large scale genetic analysis of multiple prostate cancer samples, published online by Cell Press on June 24th in the journal Cancer Cell, is providing exciting new insight into the disease and may lead to more effective treatment strategies. In addition, the freely available genetic and clinical outcome data obtained in the study represents a valuable public resource for the cancer research community.

Mice that carry a gene variant earlier linked to the inflammatory bowel disorder known as Crohn's disease only succumb to symptoms if they've also been infected by a common virus, according to a study reported in the June 25th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication.

STANFORD, Calif. — We are what we eat, but who are "we"? New, high-powered genomic analytical techniques have established that as many as 1,000 different single-celled species coexist in relative harmony in every healthy human gut.

STANFORD, Calif. — Nearly all mammalian cells have what's called a primary cilium — a single, stump-like rod projecting from the smooth contours of the cell's outer membrane. Unlike its more flamboyant cousins, the motile cilia, which beat industriously in packs to clear our airways of mucous or to shuttle a fertilized egg to the uterus, the primary cilium just … sits there.

Like a bump on a log.

In fact, it looks so useless that, until recently, many scientists considered it to be just a leftover artifact of eons of evolution.

A team of researchers, led by scientists at the University of California, San Diego, have identified a key player in the dramatic loss of neurons in mice and fly models, a discovery that could help illuminate the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in human neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson's disease.

Scientists have shown that a specific virus can interact with a mutation in the host's genes to trigger disease. The observation may help explain why many people with disease risk genes do not actually develop disease.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that three factors were necessary in mice to create a condition similar to the human bowel disorder Crohn's disease: a mutated gene, exposure to a damaging chemical and infection with a specific virus. The report appears in Cell.

Transposons, or "jumping genes," make up roughly half of the human genome. Geneticists previously estimated that they replicate and insert themselves into new locations roughly one in every 20 live births.

New results, published in the June 25, 2010 issue of Cell, suggest that every newborn is likely to have a new transposon somewhere in his or her genome.