Life Sciences and Chemistry

May explain life extension via calorie restriction

Researchers at Harvard Medical School (HMS) have discovered that a gene in yeast is a key regulator of lifespan. The gene, PNC1, is the first that has been shown to respond specifically to environmental factors known to affect lifespan in many organisms. A team led by David Sinclair, assistant professor of pathology at HMS, found that PNC1 is required for the lifespan extension that yeast experience under calorie restriction. A yeast

Duke University Medical Center biochemists have developed a computational method to design proteins that can specifically detect a wide array of chemicals from TNT to brain chemicals involved in neurological disorders. In a paper in the May 8, 2003, issue of the journal Nature, they demonstrate the breadth of their design method, and also that such sensor proteins can be re-incorporated into cells to activate cellular signaling and genetic pathways.

The researchers said their achievement c

For nine months before birth, infants soak in a watery, urine-filled environment. Just hours after birth, however, they have near-perfect skin. How is it that nature enables infants to develop ideal skin in such seemingly unsuitable surroundings?

A new study by researchers at the Skin Sciences Institute of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center shows that the answer may be vernix — the white, cheesy substance that coats infants for weeks before they are born, then is wiped off and d

Scientists at the University of Sheffield have cast doubt on the validity of the controversial theory of biological cold fusion, the principle sometimes used to lend credence to the practice of selling silicon tablets to strengthen bones, on the assumption that the body will turn the silicon into calcium.

Biological cold fusion, also known as the ‘Kervran effect’, is the principle that living organisms can act as alchemists and turn one element into another. The French Scientist, Louis C. Ke

The Genetic and Microbiological research group at the Navarre Public University is working with the Agruset company from Rioja in the production of new commercial varieties of the fungus oreille de chardon mushroom (Pleurotus eryngii). The same group has developed 150 new varieties of the oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus), which enhances the productivity and quality of the varieties of this fungus which are currently being commercialised.

Mushroom agreeable to the palate

In photographs, it looks like a big red spaceship cruising the ocean depths. But it’s actually a new species of jelly that was discovered and described by scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. MBARI scientists published their research on this unusual animal in a recent online version of the journal Marine Biology.

With a bell diameter of up to a meter wide, the new jelly, named Tiburonia granrojo or “big red,” would seem tough to miss, except that it lives deep below t