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) -- Scientists at Harvard University have used light and genetic trickery to trace out neurons' ability to excite or inhibit one another, literally shedding new light on the question of how neurons interact with one another in live animals. http://www.physorg.com/news180269148.html Medicine & Health Thu, 17 Dec 2009 11:20:05 EST news180269148 A team led by Yale University scientists has developed a new approach to studying how immune cells chase down bacteria in our bodies. Their findings are described in the November 15 issue of Nature Methods Advanced Online Publication. http://www.physorg.com/news177607120.html Chemistry Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:19:21 EST news177607120 On Noah's Ark animals came in twos: male and female. In human bodies trillions of cells are coupled, too, and so are the molecules from which they are composed. Yet these don't come in twos, they are regrouped into indistinguishable clusters. Because these complex cell networks are the backbone of life - and illness - scientists have long searched for ways to splice cell clusters down to their original pairs. http://www.physorg.com/news176986612.html Biology Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:57:46 EST news176986612 Researchers have previously been able to analyse which sugar structures are to be found on certain proteins, but not exactly where on the protein they are positioned. This is now possible thanks to a new technique developed at the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. http://www.physorg.com/news175175212.html Chemistry Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:00:22 EST news175175212 A team led by scientists from The Scripps Research Institute has developed a method that dramatically improves the efficiency of creating stem cells from human adult tissue, without the use of embryonic cells. The research makes great strides in addressing a major practical challenge in the development of stem-cell-based medicine. http://www.physorg.com/news175091787.html Biology Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:36:57 EST news175091787 Researchers have developed a new method for studying bacterial swimming, one that allows them to trap Escherichia coli bacteria and modify the microbes' environment without hindering the way they move. http://www.physorg.com/news173881271.html Biology Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:23:51 EST news173881271 (PhysOrg.com) -- The brain's magic is worked by neural circuits, where information is transmitted from one nerve cell to the next. In the heat of the summer, for example, our ability to relish an ice cream is due to these circuits: they underlie our perception of its refreshing coolness, enticing color and smooth taste. http://www.physorg.com/news171724585.html Medicine & Health Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:10:01 EST news171724585 Scientists in the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) Laboratory of Bioengineering and Physical Science have developed a new technique that allows researchers to visualize fine details of cell structure three-dimensionally in thick sections, thus providing greater insight into how cells are organized and how they function. The work is described in a report published online this week in Nature Methods. http://www.physorg.com/news171195158.html Biology Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:30:01 EST news171195158 A team of Michigan State University researchers has developed a new, more efficient way of cloning zebra fish, a breakthrough that could have implications for human health research. http://www.physorg.com/news170862315.html Biology Sun, 30 Aug 2009 14:46:16 EST news170862315 Victorian stem cell scientists from Monash University have modified a human embryonic stem cell (hESC) line to glow red when the stem cells become red blood cells. http://www.physorg.com/news170333155.html Biology Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:00:02 EST news170333155 Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have developed a fast and efficient way to determine the structure of proteins, shortening a process that often takes years into a matter of days. http://www.physorg.com/news167325509.html Biology Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:40:04 EST news167325509 Researchers have invented computational tools to decode and rapidly determine whether natural compounds collected in oceans and forests are new -or if these pharmaceutically promising compounds have already been described and are therefore not patentable. http://www.physorg.com/news166712684.html Biology Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:50:02 EST news166712684 A new method to induce protein folding by taking the pressure off of proteins is up to 100 times faster than previous methods, and could help guide more accurate computer simulations for how complex proteins fold, according to research by a team of University of Illinois scientists accepted for publication in the journal Nature Methods and posted on the journal's Web site May 31. http://www.physorg.com/news163095980.html Chemistry Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:27:05 EST news163095980 (May 24, 2009) -- Using a specially adapted tool called P[acman], a collaboration of researchers led by Baylor College of Medicine has established a library of clones that cover most of the genome of Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) and should speed the pace of genetic research. http://www.physorg.com/news162394868.html Biology Sun, 24 May 2009 14:43:59 EST news162394868 The winner of the chilli cook-off, usually has a key secret ingredient, which is hard to identify. Similarly, many diseases have crucial proteins, which change the dynamics of cells from benign to deadly. http://www.physorg.com/news161951283.html Medicine & Health Tue, 19 May 2009 11:40:55 EST news161951283 UCSF scientists have created a method of quickly identifying large numbers of the genetic material known as short hairpin RNA - also called shRNA - that turns genes on and off. http://www.physorg.com/news161946389.html Biology Tue, 19 May 2009 10:07:04 EST news161946389 A team of University of Oregon biologists, using fruit flies, has created a way to isolate RNA from specific cells, opening a new window on how gene expression drives normal development and disease-causing breakdowns. http://www.physorg.com/news161861163.html Biology Mon, 18 May 2009 10:27:44 EST news161861163 (PhysOrg.com) -- A crucial tool in the evolution of scientific capability in bioscience, the fluorescence microscope has allowed a generation of scientists to study the properties of proteins inside cells. Yet as human capacity for discovery has zoomed to the nanoscale, fluorescence microscopy has struggled to keep up. Now, a team that includes UGA engineer Peter Kner has developed a microscope that is capable of live imaging at double the resolution of fluorescence microscopy using structured illumination. http://www.physorg.com/news160843613.html Chemistry Wed, 06 May 2009 15:47:43 EST news160843613 Most cellular processes are carried out by molecular machines that consist of many interacting proteins. These protein complexes lie at the heart of life science research, but they are notoriously hard to study. Their abundance is often too low to extract them directly from cells and generating them with recombinant methods has been a daunting task. http://www.physorg.com/news160662977.html Chemistry Mon, 04 May 2009 13:36:51 EST news160662977 Scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have trained computers to automatically analyze aggression and courtship in fruit flies, opening the way for researchers to perform large-scale, high-throughput screens for genes that control these innate behaviors. The program allows computers to examine half an hour of video footage of pairs of interacting flies in what is almost real time; characterizing the behavior of a new line of flies "by hand" might take a biologist more than 100 hours. http://www.physorg.com/news158415978.html Biology Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:26:47 EST news158415978 A Cancer Genomics Browser developed by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, provides a new way to visualize and analyze data from studies aimed at improving cancer treatment by unraveling the complex genetic roots of the disease. http://www.physorg.com/news157643730.html Medicine & Health Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:55:48 EST news157643730 Just as no two humans are the same, a Purdue University scientist has shown treating mice more as individuals in laboratory testing cuts down on erroneous results and could significantly reduce the cost of drug development. http://www.physorg.com/news157643106.html Medicine & Health Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:45:34 EST news157643106 Johns Hopkins engineers have invented a method that could be used to help figure out how cancer cells break free from neighboring tissue, an "escape" that can spread the disease to other parts of the body. The new lab-on-a-chip, described in the March issue of the journal Nature Methods, could lead to better cancer therapies. http://www.physorg.com/news156602858.html Medicine & Health Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:48:57 EST news156602858 (PhysOrg.com) -- It`s about as long as the width of a human hair and only half that length across. So it`s tiny - measured in millionths of a meter - and extremely tricky to manipulate. But the meiotic spindle plays so irresistibly important a role in separating our chromosomes during cell division that scientists are compelled to try to study it. http://www.physorg.com/news156015200.html Chemistry Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:35:13 EST news156015200 Solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance, or SSNMR, is a valuable tool to image and analyze the chemical makeup of proteins and other biomolecules. But the imaging process is time-consuming and requires large amounts of costly isotope-labeled sample for study. http://www.physorg.com/news153405683.html Medicine & Health Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:42:08 EST news153405683 (PhysOrg.com) -- MicroRNAs - one of the tiniest entities in the human genome - are great escape artists. Despite scientists` best efforts to detect and capture them in different tissues, they often manage to make a getaway, sneaking through the tissues` tiny holes before anyone can detect them. But now, by adapting a time-tested histological technique, Rockefeller University researchers have scored big: They have developed a new method to capture microRNAs before they disappear. The work will help researchers better understand microRNAs` increasingly indisputable role in the onset of disease. http://www.physorg.com/news152205350.html Medicine & Health Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:16:25 EST news152205350 Remarkable new tools that spotlight individual cellular molecules are transforming biomedical research. Scientists at the Gruss Lipper Biophotonics Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have spearheaded their use in a series of papers, including one published today in the online version of Nature Methods. http://www.physorg.com/news152114553.html Biology Sun, 25 Jan 2009 14:03:07 EST news152114553 During the past 20 years, researchers have identified thousands of cell protein interactions, with the ultimate goal of inventorying all that occur within cells of various organisms - a comprehensive catalogue known as the interactome. Such information will be critical to understanding the basic mechanics of cellular life, and how malfunctions in these processes contribute to cancer. http://www.physorg.com/news150482969.html Medicine & Health Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:49:29 EST news150482969 MIT engineers have developed a new, highly efficient way to pair up cells so they can be fused together into a hybrid cell. The new technique should make it much easier for scientists to study what happens when two cells are combined. For example, fusing an adult cell and an embryonic stem cell allows researchers to study the genetic reprogramming that occurs in such hybrids. http://www.physorg.com/news150297594.html Biology Sun, 04 Jan 2009 13:19:54 EST news150297594