Insect Antibiotic, Cecropin A, Bypasses Outer Defenses to Kill Bacteria From The Inside
For antibiotics, the best way to beat bacterial defenses may be to avoid them altogether. Researchers at University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered that Cecropin A, a member of a family of antibiotic proteins produced by insects, may kill bacteria and avoid resistance by entering bacterial cells and taking control of their genetic machinery.
While most antibiotics kil
Duke University Medical Center researchers have developed a new statistical genetic “fishing net” that they have cast into a sea of complex genetic data on autistic children to harvest an elusive autism gene.
Moreover, the researchers said that the success of the approach will be broadly applicable to studying genetic risk factors for other complex genetic diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes and multiple sclerosis.
In this case, the gene, which encodes part of a brain neurotr
Genetically modified (GM) pest-resistant cotton may provide yields up to 80 per cent higher than traditional types. This has been observed by scientists from the University of Bonn and the University of California at Berkeley in field trials in India. Their conclusion: peasants in the tropics and sub-tropics can benefit substantially from GM plants. These findings are surprising, since it has hitherto only been possible to detect very minor increases in yield, if any, in similar studies in temperate
A visualization of satellite data captured and processed January 1–20, 2003, by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) shows heavy pollution from China and Southeast Asia blowing out over the Pacific Ocean. The near-real time capability represented by the image is a breakthrough for NCAR team members working with the Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) instrument aboard NASA’s Terra satellite.
The image shows levels of carbon monoxide (CO) in a
When men make lame excuses for a poor test performance, women don’t buy it, according to research just published by Edward Hirt, a social psychologist at Indiana University Bloomington.
Hirt has spent the last 10 years conducting research on this aspect of social psychology that involves the term self-handicapping. The associate professor of psychology is the lead author of “I Know You Self-Handicapped Last Exam: Gender Differences in Reactions to Self-Handicapping” in the current issue of
Although sweet, bitter and umami (monosodium glutamate) tastes are different, researchers are finding that information about each of these tastes is transmitted from the various taste receptors via a common intracellular signaling pathway.
The identification of a common pathway runs counter to widespread belief among some researchers in the taste field who have long held the view that the different tastes require distinct machinery within the cell to transduce their signals to the brain, wh