news 2014

Press release issued: 10 December 2014 Researchers based in Bristol and London have uncovered a link between Lewy body diseases like Parkinson's and the brain changes associated with Alzheimer's. The findings could help to explain the close relationship between Parkinson's, more commonly known for causing movement difficulties, and dementia.

ANN ARBOR-As if holiday travel isn't stressful enough. Now University of Michigan researchers say we're likely sharing that already overcrowded airline cabin with countless tiny creatures including house dust mites. "What people might not realize when they board a plane is that they can share the flight with a myriad of microscopic passengers- including house dust mites-that take advantage of humanity's technological progress for their own benefit," said U-M biologist Pavel Klimov.

Using a gene-editing system originally developed to delete specific genes, MIT researchers have now shown that they can reliably turn on any gene of their choosing in living cells. This new application for the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing system should allow scientists to more easily determine the function of individual genes, according to Feng Zhang, the W.M. Keck Career Development Professor in Biomedical Engineering in MIT's Departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Biological Engineering, and a member of the Broad Institute and MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research.

Topics Arts & Humanities Business, Law, Society Campus & Community Science & Health World & Environment A new combination of cancer drugs delayed disease progression for patients with hormone-receptor-positive metastatic breast cancer, according to a multi-center phase II trial. The findings of the randomized study (S6-03) were presented at the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, held Dec.

o Longer sperm are better at fertilising eggs, study reveals o But females also influence a male's fertilising success o Research may produce clues to understanding human fertility The chance of a male fathering offspring may not be a simple race to the egg, but is influenced by the length of the male's sperm, say scientists from the University of Sheffield.

Animals that regulate their body temperature through the external environment may be resilient to some climate change but not keep pace with rapid change, leading to potentially disastrous outcomes for biodiversity. The study by The University of Queensland and the University of Sydney showed many animals can modify the function of their cells and organs to compensate for changes in the climate and have done so in the past.

Researchers at The University of Queensland are part of a global team that has identified a new type of artificial stem cell. UQ Associate Professor Christine Wells (right) said Project Grandiose had revealed it could track new ways to reprogram a normal adult cell, such as skin cells, into cells similar to those found in an early embryo.

Reproductive strategies Study finds that the slower 'eusocial' system in nature offers high risks, high rewards I t's a cliché to say it takes a village to raise a child, but it's a cliché some creatures have taken to heart. A handful of animals, including ants, bees, termites, and some birds, are what scientists call "eusocial." That is, they live in tight-knit groups in which some individuals give up some of their reproductive capacity to care for the offspring of others.

Press release issued: 9 December 2014 With over 42 million horses and 95 per cent of the world's donkeys found in developing countries, new research could change the health and welfare of millions of working animals in some of the poorest parts of the world. The three research studies led by Dr Becky Whay , Reader in Animal Welfare and Behaviour in the School of Veterinary Sciences at the University of Bristol, aim to build greater understanding and encourage collaboration in addressing the welfare problems of the world's working equids.

New Caledonian crows, well known for wielding tools such as sticks, prefer to hold a tool on the left or the right sides of their beaks, in much the same way that people are leftor right-handed. Now researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology suggest that those bill preferences enable each bird to keep the tip of its tool in view of the eye on the opposite side of its head.

Berkeley Lab experiment, scheduled to go aboard the International Space Station, will explore the effects of weightlessness and low-dose radiation. The crew of the International Space Station will soon be joined by 180 mice from Berkeley Lab. Their mission: help scientists learn how space travel affects the immune system, organ development, and reproduction across generations.

In order to multiply, influenza viruses are dependent on cells of a human or animal body. They board those cells, for example all along the lung surface, and their genetic material migrates into the nucleus, where it is replicated. As a result, new viruses come to life. A team led by scientists from the Cells-in-Motion Cluster of Excellence (CiM), University of Münster, has now, for the first time, succeeded in visualizing structures of the viral genome inside of human cells by light microscopy.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. When a large protein unfolds in transit through a cell, it slows down and can get stuck in traffic. Using a specialized microscope - a sort of cellular traffic camera - University of Illinois chemists now can watch the way the unfolded protein diffuses. Studying the relationship between protein folding and transport could provide great insight into protein-misfolding diseases such as Alzheimer's and Huntington's.

Scientists have discovered a mechanism in the brain that may drive our appetite for foods rich in glucose and could lead to treatments for obesity. Glucose is a component of carbohydrates, and the main energy source used by brain cells. By studying rats, a team at Imperial College London identified a mechanism that appears to sense how much glucose is reaching the brain, and prompts animals to seek more if it detects a shortfall.

Stem cells lacking the protein have an increased ability to replicate in the natural environment and following transplantation Peter Bracke UCLA scientists have for the first time identified a protein that plays a key role in regulating how blood stem cells replicate in humans. This discovery lays the groundwork for a better understanding of how this protein controls blood stem cell growth and regeneration, and could lead to the development of more effective therapies for a wide range of blood diseases and cancers.

Press release issued: 8 December 2014 Low doses of fluoxetine - better known as the anti-depressant Prozac - could hold the key to preventing PMS symptoms, an international team of researchers has found. Up to 80 per cent of women are thought to suffer from premenstrual syndrome (PMS), which can be a debilitating condition with symptoms such as anxiety, irritability, fatigue, sleep deprivation and increased sensitivity to pain.

The latest results of clinical trials of more than 125 patients testing an investigational personalized cellular therapy known as CTL019 will be presented by a University of Pennsylvania research team at the 56th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition.

Surprising new leads uncovered in global obesity epidemic 8 December 2014 Researchers have uncovered surprising new leads in the worldwide obesity epidemic by examining the combination of our rapidly changing environment with our overwhelming appetite for protein. Published in the British Journal of Nutrition, the research from the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre indicates that bottle-feeding, climate change and corporate bottom lines could be among the dark horses of global obesity.

It may be possible to develop a simple blood test that, by detecting changes in the zinc in our bodies, could help to diagnose breast cancer early. A team, led by Oxford University scientists, took techniques normally used to analyse trace metal isotopes for studying climate change and planetary formation and applied them to how the human body processes metals.

Quitting smoking sets off a series of changes in the brain that Penn Medicine researchers say may better identify smokers who will start smoking again-a prediction that goes above and beyond today's clinical or behavioral tools for assessing relapse risk.