Body

Cells must transport nutrients and messenger cargos through its membrane and transport them within the cell at the correct time and place. This procedure is complex and is regulated with the help of specific genes. If disturbances in the transport mechanism arise, severe diseases, such as diabetes, cancer and diverse neurological pathologies, are the consequence. The discovery of the molecular principles of cellular transport was honored with the Nobel Prize of physiology and medicine in 2013.

If you have it, you probably don't know it. Cytomegalovirus, or CMV, is perhaps one of the biggest pathogens you've never heard of—big, both proportionately and epidemiologically. It contains approximately 200 genes, compared to HIV's paltry 18, and it's everywhere. You can catch it as a preschooler salivating over blocks, or as a teenager experiencing your first kiss. Once you have it, you have it for life.

Good news: If you're healthy, it's harmless. Your T cells keep it in check, and you'll be none the wiser.

When we talk about genetic material, we are usually referring to the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) that we inherit from our parents. This DNA is the factory where is built a similar molecule called RNA (ribonucleic acid) which produces our proteins, such as hemoglobin or insulin , allowing the lives of our cells. But there is a special group called non-coding RNA that has a more enigmatic function.

Harvard Stem Cell Institute scientists at Boston Children's Hospital have new evidence in mice that it may be possible to repair a chronically diseased liver by forcing mature liver cells to revert back to a stem cell-like state.

Twenty-seven chemical elements are considered to be essential for human life.

Now there is a 28th – bromine.

In a paper published Thursday by the journal Cell, Vanderbilt University researchers establish for the first time that bromine, among the 92 naturally-occurring chemical elements in the universe, is the 28th element essential for tissue development in all animals, from primitive sea creatures to humans.

Case Western Reserve researchers have discovered landmarks within pluripotent stem cells that guide how they develop to serve different purposes within the body. This breakthrough offers promise that scientists eventually will be able to direct stem cells in ways that prevent disease or repair damage from injury or illness. The study and its results appear in the June 5 edition of the journal Cell Stem Cell.

DARIEN, IL – A new study suggests that couples are more likely to sleep in sync when the wife is more satisfied with their marriage.

Results show that overall synchrony in sleep-wake schedules among couples was high, as those who slept in the same bed were awake or asleep at the same time about 75 percent of the time. When the wife reported higher marital satisfaction, the percent of time the couple was awake or asleep at the same time was greater.

JUPITER, FL, June 5, 2014 – In the last few years, the benefits of short, intense workouts have been extolled by both researchers and exercise fans as something of a metabolic panacea capable of providing greater overall fitness, better blood sugar control and weight reduction—all of it in periods as short as seven minutes a few times a week.

Now, in a new study, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) confirm that there is something molecularly unique about intense exercise: the activation of a single protein.

Dartmouth researchers have found that those caring for patients with advanced cancer experienced reduced depression and felt less burdened by caregiving tasks when palliative support services were offered soon after the patient's diagnosis. They presented their findings at the American Society of Clinical Oncologist (ASCO) annual meeting in Chicago on June 3, 2014.

COLUMBIA, Mo. — The national survival rates for African-Americans diagnosed with head and neck cancer have not improved in the last 40 years despite advances in the treatment and management of the disease, University of Missouri School of Medicine researchers have found in a new study.

Scientists have routinely used mice to replicate aspects of human breast cancer in an effort to find a cure to the most common type of cancer among women.

But how effective are these preclinical models in actually mimicking the disease and giving scientists the ability to develop real comparisons?

Eran Andrechek, a physiology professor in the College of Human Medicine at Michigan State University, has discovered that many of the various models used in breast cancer research can replicate several characteristics of the human disease, especially at the gene level.

Anaheim, Calif., June 5, 2014 – Whether through the use of alcohol-containing caps or basic cleaning of the injection port of the central line, infection preventionists at three hospitals are finding successful ways to stop germs from entering central line catheters and causing bloodstream infections in patients.

To ensure the survival of Moore's law and the success of the nanoelectronics industry, alternative patterning techniques that offer advantages beyond conventional top-down patterning are aggressively being explored.

Can self-assembly based technologies offer advantages beyond conventional top-down lithography approaches?

Turku, FI – An international team led by scientists at the University of Turku in Finland studied thermally-adapted fish populations to discover that the more biological functions a gene has, the less it responds to environmental change. "In addition to having important implications for climate change adaptation, these findings could radically change the way we study gene responses to any external stimulus like for example to drug treatments", the authors suggest. Their findings are reported on June 3 2014 in the journal Nature Communications.

Researchers from the Missouri Botanical Garden have discovered in dry forests and transient sand dunes in Bolivia and Paraguay, a new plant species in the moonseed family Menispermaceae. The discovery was reported in the open access journal PhytoKeys.