Tiny protein targets Bax, inhibits apoptosis

Researchers at The Burnham Institute have found that humanin, a small, 24-amino acid protein recently discovered in studies of Alzheimer’s Disease, suppresses activation of the protein Bax. Bax triggers pathologic cell death in a number of diseases, including Parkinson’s, stroke, heart attack and degeneration of ovaries during menopause. These results, to be published later this month in the journal Nature (currently available at the journa

The resilience of sockeye salmon runs in Alaska’s Bristol Bay -– after a century of fishing they’re as healthy as they’ve ever been – is about strength in numbers.

It’s not just an abundance of fish, although the numbers returning to spawn is tens of millions more than the total across the lower 48 states and prudent actions by fishermen and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game have helped make it a classic example of a sustainable fishery.

As it turns out, it’

In the race to stay one step ahead of drug-resistant bacteria, scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley obtained high-resolution images of a protein complex found in bacteria that repels a wide range of antibiotics.

The images, which appear in the May 9 issue of Science, offer new insight into how bacteria survive attacks from different antibiotics, a growing health problem called multidrug resistance. As the team learned, these robu

Next-Generation, High-bandwidth Memory Architecture Targets Communication Data Storage Applications

Infineon Technologies AG and Micron Technology, Inc., today announced the release of the complete specification for reduced latency DRAM II (RLDRAM™ II) architecture. Operating at speeds of up to 400 MHz, RLDRAM II products are the second-generation, ultra high-speed double data rate (DDR) SDRAM that combines fast random access with extremely high bandwidth and high density targeting co

Drivers are four times more likely to have an accident if they use a mobile phone on the road. However, using a “talking windscreen” rather than a traditional mobile phone while driving could reduce this risk, and so help to prevent accidents, according to Oxford University research just published in Psychological Science.

A growing body of evidence shows that using a hands-free phone is as problematic for drivers as using a hand-held phone. It is probably the distraction of a driver´s atte

The storage of plutonium has long plagued scientists. “It is a dangerous metal and its long term storage must be done with special care so as not to harm the environment, ”said physicist Serguei Savrasov, Ph.D.

Finding a solution to this problem led Savrasov, an associate professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), and a team of researchers at Rutgers University and Los Alamos National Laboratories, to study how this metal reacts to heat, a natural condition of storage over time