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. Brain may win out over brawn as the primary cause of breathing problems in children with a severe form of muscular dystrophy known as Pompe disease. http://www.physorg.com/news162490827.html Medicine & Health Mon, 25 May 2009 17:20:51 EST news162490827 It is the concentration of a few signaling molecules that determines the fate of individual cells during the early development of organisms. In the renowned journal Current Biology, a team of molecular biologists led by Pia Aanstad of the University of Innsbruck reports that a variety of molecular mechanisms accounts for the interpretation of the concentration of the signaling molecule Hedgehog. http://www.physorg.com/news162215335.html Biology Fri, 22 May 2009 12:49:30 EST news162215335 (PhysOrg.com) -- A discovery made by researchers at McGill University and the affiliated Lady Davis Research Institute for Medical Research at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital offers new hope for the early diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's disease. http://www.physorg.com/news162210645.html Chemistry Fri, 22 May 2009 11:31:53 EST news162210645 A new protein identified as critical to insulating the wiring that connects the brain and body could one day be a treatment target for divergent diseases, from rare ones that lower the pain threshold to cancer, Medical College of Georgia researchers say. http://www.physorg.com/news161954770.html Medicine & Health Tue, 19 May 2009 12:27:09 EST news161954770 Researchers comparing the fetal development of the eye of the owl monkey with that of the capuchin monkey have found that only a minor difference in the timing of cell proliferation can explain the multiple anatomical differences in the two kinds of eyes. http://www.physorg.com/news161886881.html Biology Mon, 18 May 2009 17:37:46 EST news161886881 A phase III study has shown that adding an antibody-based therapy that harnesses the body's immune system resulted in a 20 percent increase in the number of children living disease-free for at least two years with neuroblastoma. Neuroblastoma, a hard-to-treat cancer arising from nervous system cells, is responsible for 15 percent of cancer-related deaths in children. The researchers reported their findings - the first to show that immunotherapy could be effective against childhood cancer - online May 14, 2009 on the American Society of Clinical Oncology website in advance of presentation June 2. http://www.physorg.com/news161546544.html Medicine & Health Thu, 14 May 2009 19:03:19 EST news161546544 Driving Miranda, a protein in fruit flies crucial to switch a stem cell's fate, is not as complex as biologists thought, according to University of Oregon biochemists. They've found that one enzyme (aPKC) stands alone and acts as a traffic cop that directs which roads daughter cells will take. http://www.physorg.com/news161519009.html Biology Thu, 14 May 2009 11:24:08 EST news161519009 Whether on the trail, at the gym, or even on the front-porch steps, what happens inside your ankle in the milliseconds following a single misstep could sentence you to a lifetime of ankle trouble. http://www.physorg.com/news161429051.html Medicine & Health Wed, 13 May 2009 10:26:06 EST news161429051 A genetic variant that substantially improves survival of individuals with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, has been indentified by a consortium of researchers led by John Landers, PhD, Associate Professor of Neurology and Robert Brown, MD, DPhil, Chair and Professor of Neurology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Discovery of the KIFAP3 gene variant is reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://www.physorg.com/news161315545.html Medicine & Health Tue, 12 May 2009 02:53:46 EST news161315545 Researchers at the Université de Montreal (UdeM) and the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI), McGill University have discovered that cells which normally support nerve cell (neuron) survival also play an active and major role in the death of neurons in the eye. The findings, published this week in The Journal of Neuroscience, may lead to more streamlined therapies for a variety of acute and chronic neurological disorders, including glaucoma and retinal artery occlusion. http://www.physorg.com/news160912042.html Medicine & Health Thu, 07 May 2009 10:54:38 EST news160912042 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team led by researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory has now pinpointed the exact gene responsible for a 2007 breakthrough in which mice with symptoms of Alzheimer's disease regained long-term memories and the ability to learn. http://www.physorg.com/news160835025.html Medicine & Health Wed, 06 May 2009 13:24:31 EST news160835025 The sense of smell is a complex process of the central nervous system that involves specific areas of the brain. In fact, olfactory dysfunction is seen in various central nervous system disorders that involve immune-mediated mechanisms, such as Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis. Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease that sometimes involves the central nervous system in a condition known as neuropsychiatric SLE (NPSLE). http://www.physorg.com/news160322968.html Medicine & Health Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:10:09 EST news160322968 (PhysOrg.com) -- The fertile soil of California's Central Valley has long made it famous as one of the nation's prime crop-growing regions. But it's not just the soil that allows for such productivity. Crops like potatoes, dry beans and tomatoes have long been protected from bugs and weeds by the fungicide maneb and the herbicide paraquat. http://www.physorg.com/news159542625.html Medicine & Health Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:24:40 EST news159542625 New research at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies casts the role of a neuronal growth factor receptor -long suspected to facilitate the toxic effects of beta amyloid in Alzheimer's disease - in a new light, suggesting the molecule actually protects the neuron in the periphery from beta amyloid-induced damage. http://www.physorg.com/news159466987.html Medicine & Health Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:23:31 EST news159466987 With more than 30 muscles in your arm, controlling movement -- whether it's grasping a glass or throwing a baseball -- is a complex task that potentially takes into account thousands of variables. http://www.physorg.com/news159464759.html Medicine & Health Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:46:38 EST news159464759 Even low levels of lead found in the blood during early childhood can adversely affect how the child's cardiovascular system responds to stress and could possibly lead to hypertension later in life, according to a study from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Oswego. http://www.physorg.com/news159191316.html Medicine & Health Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:49:31 EST news159191316 (PhysOrg.com) -- Unlike most wrinkles on our bodies, which appear due to bending and stretching of the skin, fingerprints aren't the result of repeated motion. Each of us is born with a unique set of them, although scientists aren't exactly sure what purpose fingerprints serve. http://www.physorg.com/news158088270.html Biology Sat, 04 Apr 2009 18:24:51 EST news158088270 Nicotine isn't just addictive. It may also interfere with dozens of cellular interactions in the body, new Brown University research suggests. http://www.physorg.com/news157987668.html Medicine & Health Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:28:23 EST news157987668 (PhysOrg.com) -- A collaboration of University of Pennsylvania and University of Wisconsin chemists and anesthesiologists have identified a fluorescent anesthetic compound that will assist researchers in obtaining more precise information about how anesthetics work in the body and will provide a means to more rapidly test new anesthetic compounds in the search for safer and more effective drugs. http://www.physorg.com/news157986643.html Chemistry Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:11:10 EST news157986643 Natalie Ciaccio, a fourth-year graduate student researcher in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Kansas, is investigating what might be an ideal target for anti-cancer drug therapy, and she is focusing her work on brain tumors specifically. http://www.physorg.com/news157964876.html Medicine & Health Fri, 03 Apr 2009 08:08:21 EST news157964876 Since the days of Charles Darwin, researchers are interested in reconstructing the "Tree of Life", and in understanding the development of animal and plant species during their evolutionary history. In the case of vertebrates, this research has already come quite a long way. But there is still much debate about the relationships between the animal groups that made their apparation very early in evolutionary history, probably in the late Precambrian, some 650 million years ago. http://www.physorg.com/news157897407.html Biology Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:24:11 EST news157897407 A research team from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla has identified a protein in the brain of mice that protects neurons from excessive inflammation, which can lead to neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease. Their study, which identifies the protective function of a protein called Nurr1 and defines the pathway by which it works, will be published in the April 3 edition of the journal Cell. http://www.physorg.com/news157895578.html Medicine & Health Thu, 02 Apr 2009 12:56:59 EST news157895578 A study at the University of Leeds has shown, for the first time, that C. elegans worms crawl and swim using the same gait, overturning the widely accepted belief that these two behaviours are completely different. http://www.physorg.com/news157721592.html Biology Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:33:34 EST news157721592 Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) have been able to speed recovery and substantially reduce damage resulting from spinal cord injury in preclinical studies. http://www.physorg.com/news157718167.html Medicine & Health Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:36:42 EST news157718167 Thirty-seven scientists from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and 20 other major research institutions in the U.S. and Europe have issued a major challenge to the neuroscience community. At long last, the time has come, they argue in a just-published paper, to assemble a comprehensive map of the major neural circuits in the mammalian brain. http://www.physorg.com/news157717611.html Medicine & Health Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:27:12 EST news157717611 Scientists studying a mysterious neurological affliction in cats have discovered a surprising ability of the central nervous system to repair itself and restore function. http://www.physorg.com/news157654992.html Medicine & Health Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:04:31 EST news157654992 (PhysOrg.com) -- No doubt proteins are complex. Most are "large" and full of interdependent branches, pockets and bends in their final folded structure. This complexity frustrates biochemists and protein engineers seeking to understand protein structure and function in order to reproduce or create new uses for these natural molecules to fight diseases or for use in industry. http://www.physorg.com/news157043680.html Chemistry Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:15:03 EST news157043680 A newly identified molecular pathway that directs stem cells to produce glial cells yields insights into the neurobiology of Down's syndrome and a number of central nervous system disorders characterized by too many glial cells, according to a recent study by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. http://www.physorg.com/news156174646.html Biology Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:51:52 EST news156174646 The experimental drug fampridine (4-aminopyridine) improves walking ability in some individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS). That is the conclusion of a multi-center Phase 3 clinical trial, the results of which were published today in the journal The Lancet. http://www.physorg.com/news154938328.html Medicine & Health Fri, 27 Feb 2009 06:26:14 EST news154938328 The impact of the amyloid plaques that appear in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease may extend beyond the deposits' effects on neurons - the cells that transmit electrochemical signals throughout the nervous system. In an article in the Feb. 27 issue of Science, researchers from the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease (MGH-MIND) report that amyloid plaques may also increase the activity of astrocytes, star-shaped nervous system cells traditionally considered to provide a supporting role in normal brain function. They also show that amyloid-induced astrocyte hyperactivity extends throughout the brain rather than being confined to regions directly adjacent to plaques. http://www.physorg.com/news154881070.html Medicine & Health Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:32:52 EST news154881070