Body

LA JOLLA, CA – April 14, 2011 – An enzyme essential for DNA replication and repair in humans works in a way that might be exploited as anti-cancer therapy, say researchers at The Scripps Research Institute and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The research, published in the April 15, 2011 issue of the journal Cell, focused on a member of a group of enzymes called flap endonucleases, which are essential to the life of a cell. The findings show new, clearly defined crystal structures of the enzyme FEN1 in action—demonstrating it functions in a way opposite to accepted dogma.

(Edmonton) A new study by researchers at the University of Alberta shows that for best results in stable patients after a heart attack, early exercise as well as prolonged exercise is the key to the best outcomes.

As many as 25 percent of hospital nurses go without sleep for at least 24 hours in order to adjust to working on the night shift, which is the least effective strategy for adapting their internal, circadian clocks to a night-time schedule.

DURHAM, N.C. – Using eyes made of a calcium carbonate crystal, a simple mollusk may have evolved enough vision to spot potential predators, scientists say.

The three-inch-long mollusks, called chitons, have hundreds of eye-like structures with lenses made of aragonite, a type of rock. It's the first time scientists have found an animal that makes eye lenses from aragonite and not the rock's close cousin, calcite.

PULLMAN, Wash.—Washington State University researchers have confirmed a critical step in cell division that results in age-related miscarriages and birth defects, including Down syndrome.

Using human kidney cells and brain tissue from adult mice, Johns Hopkins scientists have uncovered the sequence of steps that makes normally stable DNA undergo the crucial chemical changes implicated in cancers, psychiatric disorders and neurodegenerative diseases. The process may also be involved in learning and memory, the researchers say.

A report on their study appears online April 14 in Cell.

(Edmonton) A new study by researchers at the University of Alberta shows that for best results in stable patients after heart attack, early exercise as well as prolonged exercise is the key to the best outcomes.

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Using eyes made of a calcium carbonate crystal, a simple mollusk may have evolved enough vision to spot potential predators, scientists say.

Daniel Speiser, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Ecology Evolution and Marine Biology at UC Santa Barbara, studied mollusks that he collected in the Florida Keys. His research of their vision, performed during his graduate studies at Duke University, resulted in a study published today by Current Biology.

Challenging traditional views of workplace anger, a new article by a Temple University Fox School of Business professor suggests that even intense emotional outbursts can prove beneficial if responded to with compassion.

Dr. Deanna Geddes, chair of the Fox School's Human Resource Management Department, argues that more supportive responses by managers and co-workers after displays of deviant anger can promote positive change at work, while sanctioning or doing nothing does not.

A dietary yeast extract could be an effective alternative to antibiotics for poultry producers, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) study.

MADISON – A little information can go a surprisingly long way when it comes to understanding rodent-borne infectious disease, as shown by a new study led by John Orrock from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Chronic inhalation of polluted air appears to activate a protein that triggers the release of white blood cells, setting off events that lead to widespread inflammation, according to new research in an animal model.

This finding narrows the gap in researchers' understanding of how prolonged exposure to pollution can increase the risk for cardiovascular problems and other diseases.

The idea of probing the body's interior with radiation stretches back to experiments with X rays in the 1800s, but more than a century later, images taken with radiological scans still are not considered reliable enough to, for example, serve as the sole indicator of the efficacy of a cancer treatment. Lisa Karam, a biochemist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and a few dozen of her colleagues across North America have set out to change that.

and Spanish.

A University of Granada research group composed of professors Antonio Campos and Miguel Alaminos (histologists), María del Mar Pérez, Ana Ionescu and Juan de la Cruz Cardona (opticians) and the ophthalmologist Miguel González Andrades, University Hospital San Cecilio, Granada, have made the first bioartificial organ in Spain

Genetically modified bacteria could be used in air filters to extract pesticide vapors from polluted air thanks to work by researchers in China published this month in the International Journal of Environment and Pollution.