A glitch in the mechanism by which cells recycle damaged components may trigger Parkinson’s disease, according to a study by scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. The research appears in The Journal of Clinical Investigation and could lead to new strategies for treating Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.

All cells depend on a surveillance system known as autophagy (which literally means “self eating”) to digest and recycle the damaged molecules that arise as cells age. In autophagy, defective proteins and other molecules are transported to membrane-bound sacs called lysosomes. After attaching to the lysosomal membrane, the molecules enter the lysosome, where they are digested by enzymes.

A diagnosis of childhood cancer 50 years ago meant almost certain death. Now, because of scientific advances, the majority of newly diagnosed children can expect to survive.

Continued from Part 1: I interviewed Gary Taubes by phone a few weeks ago, shortly after he gave a talk about the main ideas of his new book — Good Calories, Bad Calories — at UC Berkeley. The interview lasted about 2 hours. This is part 2. SETH: What do you think about prions? GARY TAUBES: Here’s the problem with prions: the claim is that here’s a radical discovery — an infectious agent that doesn’t have nucleic acid — and it’s based fundamentally on a negative result, which is that when researchers have gone looking for the nucleic acids they failed to find them. Therefore, so the logic goes, they must not be there.

You may not think of oceanography when it comes to cancer research but an unexpected discovery in marine biomedical laboratories at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography has led to information on how a marine organism creates a natural product currently being tested to treat cancer in humans.

What are the United States presidential candidates’ positions on scientific topics ranging from evolution to global warming? A special news report in the January 4th issue of Science addresses these questions and profiles the nine leading candidates on where they stand on important scientific issues.

The 10-page special report, Science and the Next U.S. President profiles Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson and offers voters a glimpse at each candidate’s views on science.

Hydrogen peroxide, the same mild acid that many people use to disinfectant their kitchens or treat cuts and abrasions, is also produced by the body to keep cells healthy. Now, researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine have solved how part of this complex process works.

Reporting in the January 3 issue of Nature, a team led by W. Todd Lowther, Ph.D., developed a three-dimensional snapshot of how two proteins produced by cells interact to regulate the levels of hydrogen peroxide.

For example, when the immune system is activated in response to bacteria, large amounts of hydrogen peroxide are produced by certain cells to fight the infection. Lowther and colleagues studied how a molecule known as peroxiredoxin (Prx) helps control levels of the agent.

A group of scientists in Princeton's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology has uncovered a new biological mechanism that could provide a clearer window into a cell's inner workings.

What's more, this mechanism could represent an "epigenetic" pathway -- a route that bypasses an organism's normal DNA genetic program -- for so-called Lamarckian evolution, enabling an organism to pass on to its offspring characteristics acquired during its lifetime to improve their chances for survival. Lamarckian evolution is the notion, for example, that the giraffe's long neck evolved by its continually stretching higher and higher in order to munch on the more plentiful top tree leaves and gain a better shot at surviving.

Planarians have fascinated centuries of biologists by their amazing powers of regeneration. If you decapitate a planarian, the body can grow a new head, and the head can grow a new body. In fact, if you cut out a very tiny chunk from the side of a planarian, that chunk will be able to regenerate a new, complete organism. How do these strange critters manage this? What genes do they have that we don't have? As it turns out, most planarian genes are shared with humans, and several groups of scientists are using the latest tools of genomics and molecular biology to figure out just what it is that gives planarians their remarkable powers of regeneration. These researchers hope that planarians will ultimately teach us how to regenerate human injuries.

 

Happy New Year to all of you that are regular readers of this blog and to those of you who might be coming to it the first time.  May 2008 be a happy year for everyone.  I can promise that it will be another year of upheaval and change, probably exceeding 2007 in that regard.  I will submit to you my annual predictions, both general and specific, for the year within the next two weeks.  Right now I would like to take a quick look at several late in the year developments of 2007 that provide indication as to where we are going and what will lay ahead for us in 2008.

Many people pay silly amounts of money to wear a particular logo or a designer brand. A designer outfit doesn't keep you any warmer or dryer than an unbranded one, but functionality is only part of the story. Designer products say something about you – you are a trendy, sexy or sophisticated person. Brands help us to express who we think we are and who we want to be.

Big name brands are an integral part of our lives, says Davide Ravasi, associate professor in the Institute of Strategic Management of Bocconi University, Italy. Whether its Levi jeans, BMW cars or Nokia phones, we know the brands we like.