Los Angeles, CA (July 3, 2013) – With more and more women representing the 50 states on Capitol Hill every year, many have noted that female politicians are not given the same treatment as males in the media. A recent study from a special mini symposium in Political Research Quarterly (a SAGE Journal) finds that news coverage of female politicians focuses more on character traits and less on their policy arguments than it does for their male counterparts.
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Despite decades of research on the bacterium that causes tuberculosis (TB), scientists have not had a comprehensive understanding of how the bacterium is wired to adapt to changing conditions in the host. Now, researchers at Stanford University, Seattle BioMed, Boston University and the Broad Institute, Max Planck Institute of Biology in Berlin, Germany, Caprion Proteomics Inc.
(Boston) – In a study from Boston University's National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL), researchers have generated a map of the cellular circuitry of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of human tuberculosis (TB). This information, which is being published online as an Advanced Online Publication in the journal Nature, sheds new light on the bacterium's ability to survive inactive in the human body for decades, resist treatment and cause disease.
Montréal, July 3, 2013 – A team of researchers at the IRCM, led by Dr. Javier M. Di Noia in the Immunity and Viral Infections research division, discovered a novel research model for the study of auto-immune diseases. The Montréal scientists are the first to find a way to separate two important mechanisms that improve the quality of antibodies. This study was featured in a recent issue of The Journal of Immunology.
Research published today shows why people find it hard to follow Government guidelines to cut their fat and sugars intake at the same time - a phenomenon known as the sugar-fat seesaw.
The review, published in the journal Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, looked at 53 scientific papers and found a strong and consistent inverse association in the percentage of energy coming from fats and sugars. People with diets low in sugars were likely to be high in fat, and vice-versa. Nutritionists have labelled this the 'sugar-fat seesaw'.
For young lizards born into this unpredictable world, their very first meal can be a major life changer. So say researchers who report evidence on July 3 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, that this early detail influences how the lizards disperse from their birthplaces, how they grow, and whether they survive. A quick or slow meal even influences the lizards' reproductive success two years later in a surprising way.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Researchers are striving to understand the different genetic structures that underlie at least a subset of autism spectrum disorders. In cases where the genetic code is in error, did that happen anew in the patient, perhaps through mutation or copying error, or was it inherited? A new study in the American Journal of Human Genetics finds evidence that there may often be a recessive, inherited genetic contribution in autism with significant intellectual disability.
Scientists have identified the genetic cause of a rare skin condition that causes the hands and feet to turn white and spongy when exposed to water.
The study, led by researchers from Queen Mary, University of London, has provided scientists with an insight into how the skin barrier functions and could help with research into a variety of conditions.
Thousands of sequences that control genes are active in the developing human limb and may have driven the evolution of the human hand and foot, a comparative genomics study led by Yale School of Medicine researchers has found
The research, published online July 3 in the journal Cell, does not pinpoint the exact genetic mechanisms that control development of human limbs, but instead provides scientists with the first genome-wide view of candidates to investigate.
In a study that could change the way scientists view the process of protein production in humans, University of Chicago researchers have found a single gene that encodes two separate proteins from the same sequence of messenger RNA.
Published online July 3 in Cell, their finding elucidates a previously unknown mechanism in human gene expression and opens the door for new therapeutic strategies against a thus-far untreatable neurological disease.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (July 3, 2013) – In a discovery that sheds new light on the aggressiveness of certain breast cancers, Whitehead Institute researchers have identified a transcription factor, known as ZEB1, that is capable of converting non-aggressive basal-type cancer cells into highly malignant, tumor-forming cancer stem cells (CSCs). Intriguingly, luminal breast cancer cells, which are associated with a much better clinical prognosis, carry this gene in a state in which it seems to be permanently shut down.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (July 3, 2013) – Whitehead Institute researchers have determined that the transcription factor Nanog, which plays a critical role in the self-renewal of embryonic stem cells, is expressed in a manner similar to other pluripotency markers. This finding contradicts the field's presumptions about this important gene and its role in the differentiation of embryonic stem cells.
BOSTON -- A mere 25 years ago, noncoding RNAs were considered nothing more than "background noise" in the overall genomic landscape. Now, two new studies reveal that one of these tiny noncoding molecules – microRNA-22 – plays an outsized role in two types of cancer.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA—July 3, 2012—The ability to form blood vessels is one of evolution's crowning achievements, and something that separates vertebrates (animals with a backbone) from the rest of the animal kingdom. The two types of blood vessels, arteries and veins, are formed from the same precursor cell type—endothelial cells—that become committed to an arterial or venous cell fate during embryonic development. Yet precisely what drives this commitment, which is essential for shaping cardiovascular development, has long eluded researchers.
AMHERST, Mass. – Using a unique data set spanning 40 years of dengue fever incidence in Thailand, an international team led by biostatistician Nicholas Reich at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has for the first time estimated from data that after an initial dengue infection, a person is protected from infection with other strains for between one and three years.