Body

NEW YORK (March 4, 2010) -- In a leap toward making stem cell therapy widely available, researchers at the Ansary Stem Cell Institute at Weill Cornell Medical College have discovered that endothelial cells, the most basic building blocks of the vascular system, produce growth factors that can grow copious amounts of adult stem cells and their progeny over the course of weeks. Until now, adult stem cell cultures would die within four or five days despite best efforts to grow them.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers have discovered a key reason why a form of leukemia progresses from its more-treatable chronic phase to a life-threatening phase called blast crisis.

The study, led by cancer researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center-Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC-James), indicates that chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) progresses when immature white blood cells lose a molecule called miR-328.

For decades, scientists have accumulated ever-larger datasets that suggest an enormous space rock crashed into the ocean off the Yucatan Peninsula more than 65 million years ago, resulting in the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction.

Recent research, supported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF), suggested that the impact could have occurred 300,000 years prior to the K-Pg extinction, and that another cause--perhaps a second impact, or the long-lasting volcanic activity at the Deccan Traps in what is now India--drove numerous plant and animal species to their end.

NEW YORK (March 4, 2010) – A new study, led by researchers at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, demonstrates that acupuncture may be an effective therapy for joint pain and stiffness in breast cancer patients who are being treated with commonly used hormonal therapies. Results were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

GALVESTON, Texas — Imagine a mosquito-borne virus that has already infected millions of people in recent outbreaks in South and Southeast Asia, the islands of the Indian Ocean, Africa and northern Italy. Although seldom fatal, it causes highly painful arthritis-like symptoms that can linger for months or even years. It's capable of adapting to spread through a mosquito species common in much of North America. And no vaccine or treatment exists to protect humans from its effects.

Boston, MA – Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and a team of collaborators have observed for the first time that the risk of multiple sclerosis (MS) increases by many folds following infection with the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). This finding implicates EBV as a contributory cause to multiple sclerosis. The study appears in an advance online edition of the journal Annals of Neurology and will appear in a later print edition.

Adding a new link to our understanding of the complex chain of chemistry that keeps living cells alive, a team of researchers from the University of Vermont (UVM), the University of Utah, Vanderbilt University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has demonstrated for the first time the specific activity of the protein NEIL3, one of a group responsible for maintaining the integrity of DNA in humans and other mammals. Their work reported last week* sheds new light on a potentially important source of harmful DNA mutations.

A section of the Arctic Ocean seafloor that holds vast stores of frozen methane is showing signs of instability and widespread venting of the powerful greenhouse gas, according to the findings of an international research team led by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov.

Increased appetite and insulin resistance can be transferred from one mouse to another via intestinal bacteria, according to research being published online this week by Science magazine.

The finding strengthens the case that intestinal bacteria can contribute to human obesity and metabolic disease, since previous research has shown that intestinal bacterial populations differ between obese and lean humans.

We may like to eat mussels steamed in white wine, but we also like to find mussels at the beach. Mostly they are burrowed into the ground or tethered to rocks. But if you look closer you will find a mollusc which has adapted to life and nutrition in a special and fascinating way. Mussels thrive in rocky seashore habitats, in spite of the enormous physical demands present there. This is in no small part due to the evolution of the byssus, which mussels employ to tether themselves to accessible surfaces.

Scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, have identified a protein called Sestrin that serves as a natural inhibitor of aging and age-related pathologies in fruit flies. They also showed that Sestrin, whose structure and biochemical function are conserved between flies and humans, is needed for regulation of a signaling pathway that is the central controller of aging and metabolism.

Fairbanks, Alaska—A section of the Arctic Ocean seafloor that holdsvast stores of frozen methane is showing signs of instability andwidespread venting of the powerful greenhouse gas, according to thefindings of an international research team led by University of AlaskaFairbanks scientists Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov.

The Cretaceous–Tertiary mass extinction, which wiped out the dinosaurs and more than half of species on Earth, was caused by an asteroid colliding with Earth and not massive volcanic activity, according to a comprehensive review of all the available evidence, published today in the journal Science.

Two Dartmouth biologists have found that brown anole lizards make an interesting choice when deciding which males should father their offspring. The females of this species mate with several males, then produce more sons with sperm from large fathers, and more daughters with sperm from smaller fathers. The researchers believe that the lizards do this to ensure that the genes from large fathers are passed on to sons, who stand to benefit from inheriting the genes for large size.

BOSTON, Mass. (Mar. 4, 2010) ­ Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. We hear this mantratime and again. When it comes to carbon‹the "Most Wanted" element in termsof climate change‹nature has got reuse and recycle covered. However, it's upto us to reduce. Scientists at Harvard Medical School are trying to meetthis challenge by learning more about the carbon cycle, that is, the processby which carbon moves from the atmosphere into plants, oceans, soils, theearth's crust, and back into the atmosphere again.