Life Sciences and Chemistry

A brain protein already known to play a central role in the “feast or fast” signaling that controls the urge to eat has now been found to influence appetite in a second way. The discovery identifies a potential new target for drugs against obesity.

Earlier research has shown that this protein, called MC4R, is a receptor on neurons in the hypothalamus region of the brain and receives signals through at least two pathways about the status of the body’s fat reserves. If fat

Along with five European academic laboratories, researchers from the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) connected to Ghent University are accelerating the study of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana.

Taking advantage of the new RNAi technology, they are able to study the function of genes with the aid of specially designed fragments that turn off the corresponding genes. The scientists are building a collection of such fragments in Arabidopsis. Their ul

There is increasing evidence suggesting that allergic-response diseases such as asthma, perennial rhinitis, and atopic dermatitis result from proteolytic or other enzymatic activity in common allergens. Dust is commonly allergenic, and to investigate the presence of active proteases in dust, researchers led by Jennifer Harris at The Scripps Research Institute and Nicolas Winssinger at the Université Louis Pasteur examined an extract derived from dust mites. The researchers devised and used a novel

Female mice that are abnormally small due to gene “knockout” technology are also bad mothers whose poor parenting skills cause their young to die within a day or two of birth, scientists report this week in the on-line edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Since Chawnshang Chang, Ph.D., cloned the gene for testicular orphan receptor 4 (TR4) 10 years ago, he and other scientists have tried to learn its function – scientists call it an “orphan” recept

Morphogens are molecules that play a role in the development of organs

Scientists at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center believe they have answered some critical questions that address how signaling molecules, called morphogens, work. Morphogens are secreting signaling molecules that play a key role in the formation of the shape and size of organs. For example, these molecules play a role in determining the bean-like shape of human kidneys. But when these molecules mal

Supposed psychic powers that enable people to see auras around others may simply be a quirk of the brain, according to a University College London (UCL) study of a rare form of synaesthesia where some people see colourful ‘auras’ around their loved ones.

The case study, reported in the October issue of Cognitive Neuropsychology, shows how some people can experience colours in response to people they know or words that evoke emotions – a condition known as emotion-colour synaesthe