A team of Fox Chase Cancer Center scientists led by immunologist Dietmar J. Kappes, Ph.D., has identified the genetic mutation that keeps a mouse strain from developing white blood cells, or lymphocytes, called helper T cells. The report by Kappes and his colleagues appears in the Feb. 24 issue of Nature.

Kappes' laboratory first discovered the mice with this naturally occurring defect in Fox Chase's laboratory animal facility in 1997. Known as "helper deficient" or HD mice, they are proving to be useful for exploring the pathways of lymphocyte development, according to Kappes.

Early Alzheimer's disease may be precipitated by a "traffic jam" within neurons that causes swelling and prevents proper transport of proteins and structures in the cells, according to new studies by Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers.

In mouse models of Alzheimer's disease and in human brain samples from people with the disease, researchers observed a characteristic breakdown in neurons that appears to prevent the normal movement of critical proteins to the communications centers of the nerve cells. In a vicious cycle, the traffic jam also could increase production of an abnormal protein that clogs neurons, leading to their failure and eventual death.

The researchers said their findings could provide information that might be used to develop drugs to preserve the molecular transport system and thus the viability of brain cells otherwise lost in Alzheimer's. The findings also could ultimately lead to distinctive markers of early Alzheimer's disease that could be used in early diagnostic tests for the disorder, they said.

The research team led by Lawrence S. B. Goldstein, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), reported their findings in the February 25, 2005, issue of the journal Science. Goldstein and his colleagues at UCSD collaborated on the studies with a researcher at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Discovery that termites use vibrations to choose the wood they eat may provide opportunities to new methods of reducing infestations in homes and also may provide insights into the "cocktail party effect" of signal processing – how to ignore most noise but have some signals that trigger attention – that may prove useful in artificial intelligence.

CSIRO entomologist Theo Evans says laboratory experiments have found that termites use their ability to detect vibrations to determine which food source is most suitable. The termites can also detect how the vibrations are made. This ability could be likened to a form of sonar.

Dr Evans says different termite species are known to prefer eating particular sizes of wood; certain drywood termites prefer small blocks, presumably to avoid competition. With Professor Joseph Lai and his students from the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy, Dr Evans investigated how the blind insects measured pieces of wood.