Scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have identified a new and surprising mechanism by which a class of enzymes responsible for the breakdown of proteins operates.

The process of degrading proteins no longer needed by cells is essential in the normal growth, development and regulation of cells, and the study’s findings have implications for understanding diseases like Parkinson’s and several forms of cancer.

“Many diseases involve the inappropriate accumu

Researchers have discovered the first genetic component of a biochemical pathway in the brain that governs the indelible imprinting of fear-related experiences in memory.

The gene identified by researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Columbia University encodes a protein that inhibits the action of the fear-learning circuitry in the brain. Understanding how this protein quells fear may lead to the design of new drugs to treat depression, panic and generalized anxiety di

With 46 chromosomes and six feet of DNA to copy every time most human cells divide, it’s not surprising that gaps or breaks sometimes show up in the finished product – especially when the cell is under stress or dividing rapidly, as in cancer.

But what is surprising – according to Thomas Glover, Ph.D., a geneticist at the University of Michigan Medical School – is that the breaks don’t always occur at random. They happen at a few specific locations on chromosomes, when cells are u

As mammals, our internal (circadian) clock is regulated by the patterns of light and dark we experience. But how that information is transmitted from the eye to the biological clock in the brain has been a matter of scientific debate. Scientists had suspected that a molecule called melanopsin, which is found in the retina, plays an important role.

Now researchers at Stanford University and Deltagen Inc. have confirmed that melanopsin does indeed transmit light information from the eye to th

Genome of Ciona intestinalis yields new insights into the origins of complex biological systems

The streamlined genome of Ciona intestinalis, a common sea squirt closely related to vertebrates on the evolutionary tree, is providing new clues about the origins of key vertebrate systems and structures including the human hormone, nervous and immune systems.

In an article for the December 13, 2002 issue of the journal Science, an international consortium of researchers reports

Impacts on ecosystems are greater than previously anticipated

Projected increases in rainfall variability resulting from changes in global climate can rapidly reduce productivity and alter the composition of grassland plants, according to scientists funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Although the diversity of plant species is increased in this scenario, the most important or dominant grasses were more water-stressed and their growth was reduced. Carbon dioxide release by