Body

LA JOLLA, CA – April 11, 2013 – Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have made a counterintuitive finding that may lead to new ways to clear persistent infection that is the hallmark of such diseases as AIDS, hepatitis B and hepatitis C.

Researchers at Wits University in South Africa, including Peter Schmid from the University of Zurich, have described the anatomy of a single early hominin in six new studies. Australopithecus sediba was discovered near Johannesburg in 2008. The studies in Science demonstrate how our two million year old ancestor walked, chewed and moved.

ANN ARBOR—It's been known for decades that animals such as chimpanzees seek out medicinal herbs to treat their diseases. But in recent years, the list of animal pharmacists has grown much longer, and it now appears that the practice of animal self-medication is a lot more widespread than previously thought, according to a University of Michigan ecologist and his colleagues.

The spleen is rarely noticed, until it is missing. In children born without this organ, that doesn't happen until they become sick with life-threatening bacterial infections. An international team of researchers led by scientists from Rockefeller's St. Giles Laboratory of Human Genetics and Infectious Diseases has now identified the defective gene responsible for this rare disorder. The findings, reported today in Science Express, may lead to new diagnostic tests and raises new questions about the role of this gene in the body's protein-making machinery.

A team of scientists has pieced together how the hominid Australopithecus sediba (Au. sediba) walked, chewed, and moved nearly two million years ago. Their research, which appears in six papers in the latest issue of the journal Science, also shows that Au. sediba had a notable feature that differed from that of modern humans—a functionally longer and more flexible lower back.

Together, the studies offer a comprehensive depiction of some of the most complete early human ancestral remains ever discovered.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — According to the World Health Organization, more than two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. And it's not just humans who are packing on the pounds. Our furry companions are plagued by an obesity epidemic of their own. More than 50 percent of the dogs and cats in the United States are overweight or obese.

A new hypothesis has been developed by researchers in Bochum on how Alzheimer's disease could occur. They analysed the interaction of the proteins FE65 and BLM that regulate cell division. In the cell culture model, they discovered spherical structures in the nucleus that contained FE65 and BLM. The interaction of the proteins triggered a wrong signal for cell division. This may explain the degeneration and death of nerve cells in Alzheimer's patients. The team led by Dr. Thorsten Müller and Prof. Dr.

MADISON — When it comes to delivering genes to living human tissue, the odds of success come down the molecule. The entire therapy — including the tools used to bring new genetic material into a cell — must have predictable effects.

Now, a new screening process will simplify non-viral transfection, providing a method researchers and clinicians use to find an optimal set of biomaterials to deliver genes to cells.

In December of last year the New York Post published images of a man about to be killed by a train while several bystanders did little to help him. Numerous studies have provided evidence that people are less likely to help when in groups, a phenomenon known as the "bystander effect." Those studies examined situations where only one person was needed to take action to help another. A University of Missouri anthropologist recently found that even when multiple individuals can contribute to a common cause, the presence of others reduces an individual's likelihood of helping.

(Boston) – Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have pinpointed a genetic signature for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) from airway cells harvested utilizing a minimally invasive procedure. The findings provide a novel way to study COPD and could lead to new treatments and ways to monitor patient's response to those treatments. The study is published online in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Gastric bypass surgery can drastically reduce the body weight of obese individuals in a short timeframe. For reasons that are not entirely clear, the surgery also leads to early remission of type 2 diabetes in the vast majority of patients. Researchers report online April 11 in Cell Reports, published by Cell Press, the discovery of gene-expression alterations in individuals who underwent the surgery compared with obese individuals who did not.

Chronic liver failure is a major health problem that causes about one million deaths around the world each year. A study published April 11th by Cell Press in the journal Cell reveals a new type of screen for identifying genes that promote liver repair in mouse models of both acute and chronic liver disease. The study shows that the MKK4 gene could be a promising therapeutic target to enhance liver regeneration and provides a blueprint for future studies aimed at discovering new therapies for liver disease.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified a previously unknown biological mechanism involved in the regulation of pancreatic islet beta cells, whose role is to produce and release insulin. The discovery suggests a new therapeutic target for treating dysfunctional beta cells and type 2 diabetes, a disease affecting more than 25 million Americans.

Regulating alcohol outlet density, or the number of physical locations in which alcoholic beverages are available for purchase in a geographic area, is an effective strategy for reducing excessive alcohol consumption and associated harms. A new report from the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health documents how localities can address alcohol outlet density, and outlines the critical role of health departments and community coalitions in these efforts.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (April 11, 2013) – In a surprising finding that helps explain fundamental behaviors of normal and diseased cells, Whitehead Institute scientists have discovered a set of powerful gene regulators dubbed "super-enhancers" that control cell state and identity. Healthy cells employ these super-enhancers to control genes responsible for cellular functions and developmental transitions—such as that from embryonic stem cell to nerve cell—but cancer cells are able to assemble their own insidious super-enhancers to overproduce harmful oncogenes that lead to aggressive tumors.