Body

Research by Johns Hopkins sensory biologists studying fruit flies, has revealed a critical step in fly vision. Humans with problems in this same step suffer retinal dystrophies, which manifest as visual defects ranging from mild visual impairments to complete blindness. The article, published Jan. 26 in Current Biology paves the way for using the fruit fly to screen for therapies to treat human retinal degeneration.

A software program created by an engineer at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UWM) can not only predict the types of specialized cells a stem cell will produce, but also foresee the outcome before the stem cell even divides.

Physicians and scientists agree: If we cannot entirely prevent cancer, the next best thing is to find it earlier to augment the chances of a successful fight.

LOS ANGELES - Since the dawn of the biological sciences, mankind has struggled to comprehend the relationships among the major groups of "jointed-legged" animals — the arthropods. Now, a team of researchers, including Dr. Joel Martin and Dr. Regina Wetzer from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM), has finished a completely new analysis of the evolutionary relationships among the arthropods, answering many questions that defied previous attempts to unravel how these creatures were connected. Their study is scheduled for publication in the journal Nature on Feb.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Inserting a human protein important in cancer development was able to revive dying plants, showing an evolutionary link between plants and humans and possibly making it easier to study the protein's function in cancer development, a Purdue University study has shown.

The aminopeptidase M1 protein, or APM1, is critical for root development in plants. Arabidopsis plants lacking the protein will die, but can be rescued if the protein is restored.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have peered deep into the eye of the chicken and found a masterpiece of biological design.

Scientists mapped five types of light receptors in the chicken's eye. They discovered the receptors were laid out in interwoven mosaics that maximized the chicken's ability to see many colors in any given part of the retina, the light-sensing structure at the back of the eye.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – If subway terminals didn't exist and people had to exit subway stations to switch subway lines, transit time would increase. People also may encounter distractions, such as grabbing a cup of coffee, instead of getting on the other line. Molecules also use "terminals" to save transit time during enzyme-catalyzed processes. Using advanced X-radiation techniques, University of Missouri researchers were able to visualize one of these terminals inside of an enzyme that degrades proline, which is an amino acid that has a central role in metabolism.

Scorpion venom is notoriously poisonous ― but it might be used as an alternative to dangerous and addictive painkillers like morphine, a Tel Aviv University researcher claims.

Prof. Michael Gurevitz of Tel Aviv University's Department of Plant Sciences is investigating new ways for developing a novel painkiller based on natural compounds found in the venom of scorpions. These compounds have gone through millions of years of evolution and some show high efficacy and specificity for certain components of the body with no side effects, he says.

Benjamin Franklin's advice that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" can easily be applied to today's most pressing health issue: obesity. Because taking off extra weight is an almost insurmountable challenge, preventing the progression of weight gain throughout life, especially childhood, is crucial to realizing optimal long-term health. One area of great interest is the possibility that being breastfed might predispose a person to being lean, and the longer the better.

Washington, DC – Combining tamoxifen, the world's most prescribed breast cancer agent, with a compound found in the flowering plant feverfew may prevent initial or future resistance to the drug, say researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The finding, reported online in FASEB Feb. 12, provides new insight into the biological roots of that resistance, and also tests a novel way to get around it.

It may not be obvious, but hearing two languages regularly during pregnancy puts infants on the road to bilingualism by birth. According to new findings in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, infants born to bilingual mothers (who spoke both languages regularly during pregnancy) exhibit different language preferences than infants born to mothers speaking only one language.

CLEMSON, S.C. — Clemson University researchers have developed a hands-free alternative to cell phone texting while driving.

"If you can't keep people from doing it, make it safer," said Juan Gilbert, professor and chairman of the human-centered computing division of Clemson's School of Computing.

Agricultural Research Service (ARS)-funded scientists have reported new reasons for choosing "heart-healthy" oats at the grocery store.

Nutritionist Mohsen Meydani, director of the Vascular Biology Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston, Mass., led the research on the oat compounds, called avenanthramides. Meydani previously has shown that phenolic antioxidants in oats obstruct the ability of blood cells to stick to artery walls.

Badly fitting condoms are not only likely to split and break, but they may also reduce sexual pleasure for both partners, suggests a study published in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections.

The researchers base their findings on 436 men between the ages of 18 and 67, all of whom were recruited via newspaper ads and a blog on the website of a condom sales company.

Migraine headache affects many people and a number of different preventative strategies should be considered, states an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/embargo/cmaj081657.pdf. The article, a primer for physicians, outlines various treatments and approaches for migraine headaches.