Life Sciences and Chemistry

A theory that suggests the aging process might be safely slowed by targeting genes that are quiet early but threaten damage later in life has gotten a boost from new findings from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The researchers don’t promote such tinkering in their paper, which appears online this week in advance of publication by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Rather they detail their tests, based on models of mathematical prediction, of the two l

Foxd3 joins the small, but growing list of stem cell regulating genes

In the search to understand the nature of stem cells, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have identified a regulatory gene that is crucial in maintaining a stem cell’s ability to self-renew. According to their findings, the Foxd3 gene is a required factor for pluripotency – the ability of stem cells to turn into different types of tissue – in the mammalian embryo. Their research is

Researchers have discovered how a recently identified family of plant proteins assists in stopping gene function, a finding that may help produce plants resistant to environmental stresses such as saline soil, drought and cold.

The proteins, AtCPLs, apparently play a crucial role in triggering a gene that controls plants’ reactions to stressful conditions, said Purdue University researchers. They, along with collaborators at the University of Arizona, published their findings in two pap

USDA Forest Service research confirms that chemicals in the leaves of the American chestnut suppress the growth of other trees and shrubs-and probably played a part in the species’ past dominance of the southern Appalachian forest.

Southern Research Station ecologist Barry Clinton (Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory)-with fellow researchers from Clemson University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill-tested the effects of fallen chestnut leaves on five tree species that historica

Findings could lead to new understanding of diabetes, Crohn’s, and more

Researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School, and other institutions have identified the function of a protein, dubbed aire, that is critical to helping immune cells learn to recognize–and avoid attacking–the far-flung organs and tissues of the body. The protein appears to work by turning on in the thymus, which lies beneath the breast bone, the production of a wide array of proteins from the bo

Genomes of multicellular organisms are one of the greatest mysteries of biology. The more is discovered about them, the more questions are to be answered. One of such questions is connected with the size of a genome. As is known since the middle of the 20th century, the level of organization of an organism does not depend on the genome size, i.e., on the amount of DNA in the nucleus of a cell. Sometimes, a primitive organism contains much more DNA than a mammal. For example, the genome of certain amo