Life Sciences and Chemistry

Advances in biomedical imaging are allowing UC Davis researchers to use mice more effectively to study cancers comparable to human disease. The system can distinguish different stages of cancer and could lead to more sensitive screening tests for cancer-fighting drugs.

Positron emission tomography (PET) is widely used for detecting and following cancer in human patients. It works by following short-lived radioactive tracers that are taken up by fast-growing cancer cells.

Day-active bees, such as the honeybee, are well known for using visual landmarks to locate a favoured patch of flowers, and to find their way home again to their hive. Researchers have now found that nocturnal bees can do the same thing, despite experiencing light intensities that are more than 100 million times dimmer than daylight. The new findings, reported in the latest issue of Current Biology by a team led by Eric Warrant at Lund University, Sweden, advance our understanding of the visual

The Australian dingo descends from domesticated dogs that people from Southeast Asia brought with them to Australia some 5,000 years ago. Genetic studies indicate that it is probably a matter of a single occasion and a very small number of dogs.

The story begins when a few domestic dogs originally originating from East Asia, jump ashore from a boat. “No matter how you get to Australia, you have to travel across open seas for at least 50 km-a journey no large land-based animal has eve

Malaria drug blocks brain conduits, a boon for neuroscience research

Brown University researchers have discovered that mefloquine, an anti-malarial drug, blocks two gap junction proteins, or connexins, in low doses and with very few side effects in the brains of laboratory mice. The work opens an important door: Connexins found in high concentrations in the brain are believed to play a critical role in movement, vision and memory.

To understand how these communication “tun

A defect in blood vessel formation in human placenta due to loss of LBP-1a gene is linked to spontaneous abortion, infant death and long-term neurological or cardiovascular problems

The lack of a gene called LBP-1a in the mouse embryo prevents normal growth of blood vessels in the placenta. This finding suggests that a similar defect in humans could play a role in fetal growth retardation, infant mortality and spontaneous abortion. These results, by investigators at St. Jude Children&

If brain size is proportional to body size in virtually all vertebrate animals, Cornell University biologists reasoned, shouldn’t eye size and body size scale the same way? While they failed to find a one-size-fits-all rule for eyes, what they learned about the 300 vertebrates they studied helps to explain how animals evolved precisely the orbs they need for everyday life.

The biologists reported their findings in the journal Vision Research (August 2004, “The allometry and scalin