http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. (PhysOrg.com) -- The first few times that scientists mapped out all the DNA in a human being in 2001, each effort cost hundreds of millions of dollars and involved more than 250 people. Even last year, when the lowest reported cost was $250,000, genome sequencing still required almost 200 people. In a paper to be published online Aug. 9 by Nature Biotechnology, a Stanford University professor reports sequencing his entire genome for less than $50,000 and with a team of just two other people. http://www.physorg.com/news169137027.html Biology Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:30:52 EST news169137027 (PhysOrg.com) -- Chemists at the University at Buffalo have used rational drug design to synthesize small, cell-permeable molecules that are effective in vitro against two common types of myotonic muscular dystrophy, a result that has implications for potentially curing muscular dystrophy, as well as other diseases. http://www.physorg.com/news168876812.html Chemistry Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:30:01 EST news168876812 (PhysOrg.com) -- In 1953, Stanley Miller filled two flasks with chemicals assumed to be present on the primitive Earth, connected the flasks with rubber tubes and introduced some electrical sparks as a stand-in for lightning. The now famous experiment showed what amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, could easily be generated from this primordial stew. But despite that seminal experiment, neither he nor others were able to take the next step: that of showing how life`s code could come from such humble beginnings. http://www.physorg.com/news168875229.html Biology Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:47:47 EST news168875229 (AP) -- The race to build a "smarter" electrical grid could have a dark side. Security experts are starting to show the dangers of equipping homes and businesses with new meters that enable two-way communication with utilities. http://www.physorg.com/news168270648.html Technology Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:51:33 EST news168270648 (PhysOrg.com) -- The body's nanomachines that read our genes don't run as smoothly as previously thought, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, scientists. http://www.physorg.com/news168182853.html Chemistry Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:29:22 EST news168182853 A single evolutionary event appears to explain the short, curved legs that characterize all of today's dachshunds, corgis, basset hounds and at least 16 other breeds of dogs, a team led by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health, reported today. In addition to what it reveals about short-legged dogs, the unexpected discovery provides new clues about how physical differences may arise within species and suggests new approaches to understanding a form of human dwarfism. http://www.physorg.com/news166974957.html Biology Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:50:12 EST news166974957 New research in imaging may lead to advancements for the Air Force in data encryption and wide-area photography with high resolution. http://www.physorg.com/news166809172.html Physics Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:53:37 EST news166809172 A $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation will allow University of Arizona researchers to unlock the genetic code of West African cultivated rice - and along the way to gain knowledge that could help commercial rice strains to better withstand dwindling resources, a changing climate and increased demand. http://www.physorg.com/news166720205.html Biology Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:10:27 EST news166720205 (AP) -- Antivirus software cuts two ways. It's great at blocking known viruses, but it can sometimes misfire, mistakenly flagging clean files as malicious. That sends a computer into a tailspin trying to clean up stuff that's supposed to be on there. http://www.physorg.com/news166457898.html Technology Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:50:01 EST news166457898 Deleting two genes in mice responsible for repairing DNA strands damaged by oxidation leads to several types of tumors, providing additional evidence that such stress contributes to the development of cancer. That's the conclusion of a recent study in DNA Repair by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Oregon Health and Science University and the New York University School of Medicine. http://www.physorg.com/news165668725.html Medicine & Health Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:50:01 EST news165668725 Melanoma is the most serious form of skin cancer, diagnosed in more than 50,000 new patients in the United States annually. While the rate of incidences continues to rise, survival rate has not improved and the race is on to find the genetic and cellular changes driving melanoma and to devise new means of detection and treatment. In a study published online in Genome Research, scientists have mapped chemical modifications of DNA in the melanoma genome, finding new markers that will help develop more effective treatment strategies to fight this disease. http://www.physorg.com/news165509319.html Medicine & Health Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:49:20 EST news165509319 Whatever their reason for posting their thoughts online, bloggers have a shared ethical code, according to a recent study published in the journal New Media Society, published by SAGE. Key issues in the blogosphere are telling the truth, accountability, minimizing harm and attribution, although the extent to which bloggers follow their own ethical ideals can depend on the context and intended audience. http://www.physorg.com/news165156796.html Other Sciences Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:54:00 EST news165156796 Researchers at the Universities of Leeds and Bristol (UK) have developed a model of how errors are corrected whilst proteins are being built. http://www.physorg.com/news164974671.html Biology Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:18:21 EST news164974671 Rearrangements of all sizes in genomes, genes and exons can result from a glitch in DNA copying that occurs when the process stalls at a critical point and then shifts to a different genetic template, duplicating and even triplicating genes or just shuffling or deleting part of the code within them, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in a recent report in the journal Nature Genetics. The report further elucidated the effect of the fork stalling and template switching mechanism involved in some forms of copy number variation. http://www.physorg.com/news164809504.html Medicine & Health Sun, 21 Jun 2009 13:26:26 EST news164809504 Scientists have unlocked the code for the building blocks of fungal organisms which are responsible for mild as well as potentially deadly infections in people. http://www.physorg.com/news164292582.html Biology Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:30:01 EST news164292582 A team of Scripps Research scientists has created a new analog to DNA that assembles and disassembles itself without the need for enzymes. Because the new system comprises components that might reasonably be expected in a primordial world, the new chemical system could answer questions about how life could emerge. http://www.physorg.com/news163988697.html Chemistry Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:40:02 EST news163988697 Two signals - an external one from retinoic acid and an internal one from the transcription factor Neurogenin2 - cooperate to activate chromatin (the basic material of chromosomes) and help determine that certain nerve progenitor cells become motor neurons, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in a report in the current issue of the journal Neuron. http://www.physorg.com/news163858356.html Medicine & Health Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:13:16 EST news163858356 Addiction scientists are calling for tighter regulation of alcohol advertising, as new research shows that self-regulation by the alcohol industry does not protect impressionable children and youth from exposure. http://www.physorg.com/news163760969.html Medicine & Health Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:09:49 EST news163760969 Students who have trouble staying awake in history class now have a new way to learn about the Civil War and other topics: an interactive video game where they try to stop a band of evildoers from changing the past. http://www.physorg.com/news163334545.html Technology Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:42:57 EST news163334545 It was spring in what was then the Soviet Union when a mathematician in Moscow with a penchant for puzzles created a "Tetris" computer game still going strong 25 years later. http://www.physorg.com/news163141585.html Technology Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:06:55 EST news163141585 New sequencing and analysis of six strains Chlamydia will result in improved diagnosis of the sexually transmitted infection. This study provides remarkable insights into a new strain of Chlamydia that was identified in Sweden in 2006 after spreading rapidly across the country by evading most established diagnostic tests. http://www.physorg.com/news162106906.html Medicine & Health Thu, 21 May 2009 06:42:11 EST news162106906 In a review of more than 2,000 patients coded for Barrett's esophagus, electronic diagnosis overestimated the prevalence of the disease according to researchers in California. They found that only 61.9 percent of patients assigned a billing diagnosis code for Barrett's esophagus actually had Barrett's esophagus after a manual record review. The study evaluated the accuracy of diagnostic codes for Barrett's esophagus by contrasting codes from electronic databases with diagnoses from a detailed medical record review. Researchers also evaluated the reproducibility of a pathologic diagnosis of Barrett's esophagus between two pathologists and between a single pathologist on two different occasions. The study appears in the May issue of GIE: Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE). http://www.physorg.com/news161530388.html Medicine & Health Thu, 14 May 2009 14:34:04 EST news161530388 Scientists at The University of Manchester have developed an experiment that sheds new and fascinating light on how life on Earth might have begun. http://www.physorg.com/news161456485.html Chemistry Wed, 13 May 2009 18:02:05 EST news161456485 (PhysOrg.com) -- An intrepid group of UC San Diego undergraduate engineers designed and built a robotic mouse from scratch as part of the IEEE MicroMouse competition. http://www.physorg.com/news160761742.html Electronics Tue, 05 May 2009 17:02:54 EST news160761742 Tomatoes come in a variety of sizes and shapes, making them the perfect subject to test shape-analyzing software. The Tomato Analyzer is "rapidly becoming the standard for fruit morphological characterizations," according to a study led by Marin Talbot Brewer of The Ohio State University's Department of Horticulture and Crop Science. Details of the team's latest Tomato Analyzer research were published in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science. http://www.physorg.com/news160656905.html Biology Mon, 04 May 2009 11:55:30 EST news160656905 (PhysOrg.com) -- By examining very small differences in people's genes, scientists from Cornell University have developed a new tool for identifying big events in human history and pinpointing the origins of specific gene mutations. This research, published in the May issue of the journal GENETICS, helps shed light on times when the human population moved close to extinction and helps scientists close in on gene mutations that make some demographic groups more likely to develop diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, among others. http://www.physorg.com/news160274980.html Medicine & Health Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:50:11 EST news160274980 Most people are expert readers, but it is something of an enigma that our brain can achieve expertise in such a recent cultural invention, which lies at the interface between vision and language. Given that the first alphabetic scripts are thought to have been invented only around four to five thousand years it is unlikely that enough time has elapsed to allow the evolution of specialized parts of the brain for reading. While neuroimaging techniques have made some progress in understanding the neural underpinning of this essentially cultural skill, the exact unfolding of brain activity has remained elusive. http://www.physorg.com/news160048496.html Medicine & Health Mon, 27 Apr 2009 10:55:29 EST news160048496 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at the University of Glasgow have unravelled the woolly history of sheep domestication by examining retroviruses preserved in the animal`s DNA. http://www.physorg.com/news159802675.html Biology Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:38:55 EST news159802675 that's all it takes to begin a series of events that lead to metastatic cancer. Now, Johns Hopkins experts have tracked how the cancer process began in 33 men with prostate cancer who died of the disease. Culling information from autopsies, their study points to a set of genetic defects in a single cell that are different for each person's cancer. http://www.physorg.com/news159206962.html Medicine & Health Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:09:51 EST news159206962 Anyone who studied a little genetics in high school has heard of adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine - the A,T,G and C that make up the DNA code. But those are not the whole story. The rise of epigenetics in the past decade has drawn attention to a fifth nucleotide, 5-methylcytosine (5-mC), that sometimes replaces cytosine in the famous DNA double helix to regulate which genes are expressed. And now there's a sixth. In experiments to be published online Thursday by Science, researchers reveal an additional character in the mammalian DNA code, opening an entirely new front in epigenetic research. http://www.physorg.com/news159111225.html Biology Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:34:19 EST news159111225