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How the brain recognizes objects

When a human looks at a number, letter or other shape, neurons in various areas of the brain's visual center respond to different components of that shape, almost instantaneously fitting them together like a puzzle to create an image that the individual then "sees" and understands

18 Jan 2006

TCF21 gene shown to be a tumor suppressor

Researchers have identified a new and unusual tumor suppressor gene that may be important in cancers of the lung and head and neck. The study shows that restoring the inactivated gene can slow the growth of tumor cells.

18 Jan 2006

Taste encoding in the brain

Instantly reacting to the sweet lure of chocolate or the bitter taste of strychnine would seem to demand that such behavioral responses be so innate as to be hard-wired into the brain.

18 Jan 2006

Mutated oncogene triggers aggressive breast cancer

Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified a molecular interaction that triggers a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer, and suggest that attacking this target with selective drugs might improve treatment.

18 Jan 2006

Growth hormone helps children with sleep apnea

Growth hormone helps hundreds of children with a rare disorder that causes them to gorge on food, but for some, starting treatment can worsen a dangerous nighttime breathing problem, University of Florida researchers have found.

18 Jan 2006

Retinal degeneration - researchers advance understanding

Researchers have labored for decades to understand blindness-inducing neurodegenerative diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and retinitis pigmentosa (RP).

18 Jan 2006

Falling asleep with baby on the sofa can be fatal

Despite the fact that the number of cases of babies dying from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) has fallen dramatically over the last two decades, it seems that the number of deaths in children while sleeping with a parent on a sofa have risen 400 percent.

18 Jan 2006

Bugs in yoghurt may stop the spread of AIDS

Scientists have found that some of the 'friendly bacteria' found in yoghurt can be genetically modified to release a drug that blocks HIV infection.

18 Jan 2006

Variation in IGF1 gene may play a role in prostate cancer risk

Two variations in the gene for insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-1) are linked to an increased risk of prostate cancer, according to research performed by scientists from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, and the University of Hawaii.

18 Jan 2006

Bexarotene shows promise in cancer treatment.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis now report that a compound related to vitamin A shows promise in preventing or slowing tumor growth in mice prone to lung cancer. The compound, called bexarotene, doesn't cause the severe skin irritations that have limited the use of other vitamin A derivatives in cancer therapies.

18 Jan 2006

Researchers identify protein essential for the maintenance of synapses

Nerve cells store and transmit information via special contact sites called synapses. Synapses also play a role in determining what we remember and what we forget.

18 Jan 2006

Aspirin can significantly reduce the risk of cardiovascular events

Aspirin can significantly reduce the risk of cardiovascular events -- a combined endpoint including stroke, heart attack and death due to cardiovascular disease -- in both men and women, according to a new meta-analysis of more than 95,000 patients by a Duke University Medical Center cardiologist.

18 Jan 2006

Missing protein C/EBPb may be cause of infertility

The absence of a key protein may lead to infertility. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign report that experiments involving mice -- to be detailed in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences -- indicate that the transcription factor protein C/EBPb must be present in the uterus for pregnancy to occur.

18 Jan 2006

Single gene may hold key to schizophrenia

By deleting a single gene in a small portion of the brains of mice, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center found that the animals were affected in a way resembling schizophrenia in humans.

18 Jan 2006

Turmeric and cauliflower prevents prostate cancer

According to researchers at Rutgers University, New Jersey, the curry spice turmeric has the potential for the treatment and prevention of prostate cancer.

17 Jan 2006

Mental illness linked to diet

According to new research released this week, mental health is linked to diet and changes to diets over the last 50 years may hold the key to the rise of mental illness.

17 Jan 2006

Identification of bipolar risk gene

A collaboration, led by scientists at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, has discovered the first risk gene specifically for bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness. This means that people who have a particular form of this gene are twice as likely to develop the disease.

16 Jan 2006

Tissue-specific RNAi reveals that WT1 expression in nurse cells controls germ cell survival and spermatogenesis

Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center say they have jumped a significant hurdle in the use of RNA interference (RNAi), believed by many to be the ultimate tool to both decode the function of individual genes in the human genome and to treat disease.

16 Jan 2006

Genome-wide prediction of mammalian enhancers for control of gene expression

Molecular biologists, developmental biologists and computer scientists at the Universtity of Helsinki, Finland, came together to advance towards cracking the code for how gene expression is controlled. The results of this work are published in Cell, in January 2006.

16 Jan 2006

Dietary soy isoflavones inhibit estrogen effects in the postmenopausal breast

Research in monkeys suggests that the natural plant estrogens found in soy do not increase markers of breast cancer risk in postmenopausal women. In fact, they may provide a protective effect in some women. The research is reported in Cancer Research.

16 Jan 2006