Life Sciences and Chemistry

Reading the fossil record, a paleontologist can peer into evolutionary history and see the surface features that plants and animals and, occasionally, microbes have left behind.

Now, scouring the genome of a Japanese yeast, scientists have found a trackway of fossil genes in the making, providing a rare look at how an organism, in response to the demands of its environment, has changed its inner chemistry and lost the ability to metabolize a key sugar.

The finding is a s

Finding may lead to new therapies

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have discovered a key mechanism in the brains of people with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) dementia. The study is the first to document decreases in the neurotransmitter dopamine in those with the condition, and may lead to new, more effective therapies. HIV dementia is a type of cognitive decline that is more common in the later stages of HIV infection.

“Our

First complete DNA sequence of methanotroph reveals metabolic flexibility, suggests mechanisms for increasing its usefulness for biotechnology

The first complete genome sequence of a methane-breathing bacterium has revealed a surprising flexibility in its metabolism, suggesting an ability to live successfully in environments previously thought to be beyond its reach. The genome sequence of Methylococcus capsulatus – a species typical of methane-breathing bacteria commonly found in

In addition to its popular role in flavoring ice cream, fudge and cake frosting, vanilla may have a future use as a medicine. Recent laboratory research has strengthened the possibility that a form of vanilla may become a drug to treat sickle cell disease.
After specially bred mice received a compound that turns into vanilla in the body, they survived five times longer than mice that did not receive the chemical. All the mice had been subjected to low oxygen pressure, a condition that causes the

Endocrinologists from the University at Buffalo are providing one more link in the growing chain of evidence pointing to chronic cellular inflammation as the precursor of heart disease and diabetes.

In research published in the Sept 21 issue of Circulation, the researchers show for the first time that circulating mononuclear cells — the body’s monocytes (the largest type of white blood cell) and lymphocytes — exist in a proinflammatory state in obese persons known to be at i

Highly regulated virulence genes and genomic instability found in the horse pathogen, burkholderia mallei

More than 2,400 years after Hippocrates first described the symptoms of glanders, scientists have deciphered the genetic code of the ancient pathogen that causes the horse disease: Burkholderia mallei.

The study found that B. mallei, a highly evolved pathogen that has been deployed in the past as a biological weapon, has an extremely regulated set of virulence genes and