Body

Plants are incredibly temperature sensitive and can perceive changes of as little as one degree Celsius. Now, a report in the January 8th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, shows how they not only 'feel' the temperature rise, but also coordinate an appropriate response -- activating hundreds of genes and deactivating others; it turns out it's all about the way that their DNA is packaged.

Scientists have identified a gene underlying a disease that causes temporary paralysis of skeletal muscle. The finding, they say, illustrates how investigations of rare genetic diseases can drive insights into more common ones.

The finding is reported in the January 8, 2010 issue of the journal Cell.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind -- A bacterial species that depends on cooperation to survive is discriminating when it comes to the company it keeps. Scientists from Indiana University Bloomington and Netherlands' Centre for Terrestrial Ecology have learned Myxococcus xanthus cells are able to recognize genetic differences in one another that are so subtle, even the scientists studying them must go to great lengths to tell them apart.

University of Alberta medical researchers have made a major breakthrough in understanding a group of deadly disorders that includes the disease made famous in the movie Lorenzo's Oil.

Because this group of diseases is inherited, the discovery could help in screening carriers and lead to prevention or an effective treatment.

The earliest known domestic horses are around 4,600 years old. They were originated in the steppes between modern Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Using this evidence, two different hypotheses have been suggested: 1) domestic horses spread from this area over the rest of Eurasia; 2) horse domestication was a multiregional process, having occurred several times in different local places.

Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have discovered how a protein long known to be an essential activator of DNA replication actually triggers this process in cells.

Lessons learned from the first 13 children at Johns Hopkins Children's Center to become critically ill from the H1N1 virus show that although all patients survived, serious complications developed quickly, unpredictably, with great variations from patient to patient and with serious need for vigilant monitoring and quick treatment adjustments.

These and other findings were published online on Dec. 31 in the journal Pediatric Critical Care Medicine, in what is believed to be the first published analysis of critical H1N1 illness in children.

A team of Johns Hopkins and other researchers have found in animal experiments that an antidepressant developed over 40 years ago can blunt and even reverse the muscle enlargement and weakened pumping function associated with heart failure.

The teeth of a 30,000-year-old child are shedding new light on the evolution of modern humans, thanks to research from the University of Bristol published this week in PNAS.

Jakarta, Indonesia – Camera traps deep in the Sumatran jungle have captured first-time images of a rare female tiger and her cubs, giving researchers unique insight into the elusive tiger's behaviour.

After a month in operation, specially designed video cameras installed by WWF-Indonesia's researchers seeking to record tigers in the Sumatran jungle caught the mother tiger and her cubs on film as they stopped to sniff and check out the camera trap.

NEW YORK--The incidence of type 1 diabetes is now twice as high among children as it was in the 1980s, and 10 to 20 times more common than 100 years ago, according to peer-reviewed research uncovered in a new book from Kaplan Publishing.

CHAPEL HILL – The DNA contained within each of our cells is exactly the same, yet different types of cells – skin cells, heart cells, brain cells – perform very different functions. The ultimate fate of these cells is encoded not just in the DNA, but in a specific pattern of chemical modifications that overlay the DNA structure. These modifications, or epigenetic markers as they are called, are stably carried in our genomes -- except for at times when the cells change their fate, such as what occurs when the sperm meets the egg. Then they are erased completely.

STANFORD, Calif. — Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have taken an early step toward identifying a new approach to drug discovery that may eventually yield drugs with fewer side effects.

In a new study, scientists have searched for mutations in the gene regions of more than 100 kidney cancer samples, the largest number of samples from a single tumour type to be sequenced to date.

PHOENIX, Ariz. — Jan. 5, 2010 — Circumcision, which substantially lowers HIV risk in men, also dramatically changes the bacterial communities of the penis, according to a study led by scientists at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and Johns Hopkins University and published Jan. 6 in the scientific journal PLoS ONE.

And these bacterial changes may also be associated with earlier observations that women whose male partners are circumcised are less likely to develop bacterial vaginosis, an imbalance between good and harmful bacteria.