news

Researchers reveal function of novel molecule that underlies human deafness New research from the University of Sheffield has revealed that the molecular mechanism underlying deafness is caused by a mutation of a specific microRNA called miR-96. The discovery could provide the basis for treating progressive hearing loss and deafness.

Jan. AUSTIN, Texas — The Harry Ransom Center , a humanities research library and museum at The University of Texas at Austin, has received a $10,000 grant from the Friends of the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics to rehouse and rearrange its holdings of the Herschel family papers and to create an online finding aid.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Researchers report that they are the first to show in molecular detail how one gene evolved two competing functions that eventually split up - via gene duplication - to pursue their separate destinies. The study, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, validates a decades-old hypothesis about a key mechanism of evolution.

The new nanoparticle, which delivers the drug in a form activated when it reaches its target, also treats tumors more effectively than the unadorned drug in mice. Cambridge, MASS. Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women's Hospital have shown that they can deliver the cancer drug cisplatin much more effectively and safely in a form that has been encapsulated in a nanoparticle targeted to prostate tumor cells and is activated once it reaches its target.'?

A team of chemists headed by Thomas Loerting from the University of Innsbruck and Hinrich Grothe from the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) have prepared and isolated gas-phase carbonic acid and have succeeded in characterizing the gas-phase molecules by using infrared spectroscopy. The results are published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

A team of chemists headed by Thomas Loerting from the University of Innsbruck and Hinrich Grothe from the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) have prepared and isolated gas-phase carbonic acid and have succeeded in characterizing the gas-phase molecules by using infrared spectroscopy. The results were published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition .

Science 10 Jan 11 Oxford University scientists have solved a 50-year-old puzzle about how, why or indeed if, sugar molecules change their shape. Sugar molecules have long been known to adopt chemically unusual shapes but some scientists attributed this to the presence and influence of water or other substances.

A new nanotech catalyst that offers industry an environmentally benign way to reduce toxic heavy metals from the chemical process through simple magnetic nanoparticles has earned McGill University researchers Chao-Jun Li, Audrey Moores and their colleagues a spot on Quebec Science's list of the Top 10 discoveries of 2010.

Freiburg Biochemist Describes Newly Discovered Processes in Production of Proteins in 'Nature' Freiburg, 07. The chaperone ZRF1 helps the ribosome to regulate protein synthesis. A new study shows that it also participates in the regulated translation of DNA segments into transcripts in the nucleus. Young unmarried girls used to be accompanied by chaperones at social events.

In a groundbreaking achievement that could help scientists "build" new biological systems, Princeton University scientists have constructed for the first time artificial proteins that enable the growth of living cells. The team of researchers created genetic sequences never before seen in nature, and the scientists showed that they can produce substances that sustain life in cells almost as readily as proteins produced by nature's own toolkit.

Remnants of the first stars have helped astronomers get closer to unlocking the "dark ages" of the cosmos. A team of researchers from the University of Cambridge and California Institute of Technology are using light emitted from massive black holes called quasars to "light up" gases released by the early stars, which exploded billions of years ago.

Media Note: For a copy of the abstract and/or full article, contact Preston Smith or John Albin. MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (12/22/2010) —Researchers at the University of Minnesota have discovered how HIV binds to and destroys a specific human antiviral protein called APOBEC3F. The results suggest that a simple chemical change can convert APOBEC3F to a more effective antiviral agent and that shielding of a common feature shared by related proteins may yield a similar outcome.

Just as walkie-talkies transmit and receive radio waves, carbon nanotubes can transmit and receive light at the nanoscale, Cornell researchers have discovered. Carbon nanotubes, cylindrical rolled-up sheets of carbon atoms, might one day make ideal optical scattering wires - tiny, mostly invisible antennae with the ability to control, absorb and emit certain colors of light at the nanoscale, according to research led by Jiwoong Park, Cornell assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology.

Australian researchers have identified a way to measure the structure of membrane proteins despite being damaged when using X-ray Free-Electron Lasers (XFELs), a discovery that will help fast track the development of targeted drugs using emerging XFELs technology. About 70% of drugs on the market today depend on the activity of membrane proteins, which are complex molecules that form the membranes of the cells in our body.

When cells are exposed to life-threatening stresses, they take quick action to save themselves. Among other defenses, they start manufacturing proteins that perform critical tasks such as repairing DNA. Researchers at MIT and the University of Albany have now discovered one way that cells boost production of such proteins.

Scientists using translucent zebrafish as a "window on cancer” have been able to see in real time how tumour cells are born - and immediately attract cells from the immune system. This inflammatory response seems to both attack and aid the cancer cells and the balance between the two provides a new therapeutic target for cancer researchers.

The imaging of tumour growth in zebrafish has revealed for the first time how cancer cells have the capacity to co-opt the immune system into spreading disease, leading the way for investigations into potential therapies for eliminating early-stage cancer in humans. Using different coloured fluorescent tags, scientists at the University of Bristol labelled the white blood cells of the translucent zebrafish in order to track the growth of tumours with live images.

University of Manchester researchers have played a vital role in an international study that has revived the 200-year-old question: why do different species share similar stages of embryonic development? Dr Casey Bergman and Dr Dave Gerrard at Manchester's Faculty of Life Sciences collaborated on the project with Pavel Tomancak, at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, and Uwe Ohler, at Duke University, on a study funded by the Human Frontiers of Science Program published in Nature today.

Astronomers have traced the waxing and waning light of exploding stars more closely than ever before and seen patterns that aren't yet accounted for in our current understanding of how these eruptions occur. A team led by Bernard Jackson, a solar physicist at the Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences at the University of California, San Diego, developed the instrument that allowed the team to make such precise measurements.

A dietary supplement of the synthetic derivative of vitamin B1 has the potential to prevent heart disease caused by diabetes, according to new research from the University of Bristol, funded by Diabetes UK. Vitamin B1 may help the body to dispose of toxins and therefore protect cells of the heart from becoming damaged.