Biology News Net
Biology

A rat thought extinct for 11 million years and a hot-pink, cyanide-producing dragon millipede are among a thousand new species discovered in the Greater Mekong Region of Southeast Asia in the last decade, according to a new report launched by World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Environment

MIT researchers have created a microbial ecosystem smaller than a stick of gum that sheds new light on the plankton-eat-plankton world at the bottom of the aquatic food chain.

Health & Medicine

New studies from Tel Aviv University suggest that waiting until a man can give his son "all the advantages" may have a disadvantage, too.

Biotechnology

Tissue engineering holds great promise for the treatment of conditions such as arthritis, osteoporosis, fibrosis, periodontal disease and traumatic injuries. However, bone and cartilage currently produced in the laboratory don't have sufficient strength to function in the body so they're not clinically viable. Dr. Douglas Hamilton, a dental researcher with the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at The University of Western Ontario has received funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) to try to find solutions to that problem.

Health & Medicine

In the aftermath of a heart attack, the body's own defenses may contribute to future heart failure. Authors of a new study believe they have identified a protein that plays an important role in a process that replaces dead heart muscle with stiffening scar tissue. The researchers are hopeful that the findings will lead to the development of new therapies to prevent this damage.

Molecular & Cell Biology

Ovarian cancer cells are "addicted" to a family of proteins produced by the notorious oncogene, MYC, and blocking these Myc proteins halts cell proliferation in the deadliest cancer of the female reproductive system, according to a presentation by University of California, Berkeley scientists at the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) 48th Annual Meeting, Dec. 13-17, 2008 in San Francisco.

Molecular & Cell Biology

A breakthrough technique that allows scientists to view individually-labeled tumor cells as they move about in real time in a live mouse may enable scientists to develop microenvironment-specific drugs against cancer, researchers report at the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) 48th Annual Meeting, Dec. 13-17, 2008 in San Francisco.

Microarray

The metastasis or spread of breast cancer to other tissues in the body can be predicted more accurately by examining subnetworks of gene expression patterns in a patient's tumor, than by conventional gene expression microarrays, according to a presentation at the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) 48th Annual Meeting, Dec. 13-17, 2008 in San Francisco.




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