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With a few genetic alterations, hens could soon be 'pharmed' to produce cancer-fighting drugs. Roger Highfield reports With Easter just days away, thoughts naturally turn to eggs of the chocolate kind. So here's a question: what's the most valuable egg in Britain? Forget about the elaborate creations of master chocolatiers. The genetically modified brown eggs produced by a flock of designer hens at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh are the biotechnological equivalent of a Fabergé. Several generations of Isa Brown hens - a prolific egg-laying French cross between Rhode Island Red and Rhode Island White - have been bred from...

Radiation From Mobile Phones Changes Protein Expression In Living People, Study SuggestsA new study on effects of mobile phone radiation on human skin strengthens the results of the human cell line analyses: living tissue responds to mobile phone radiation. (Credit: iStockphoto/Luis Pedrosa) ScienceDaily (Feb. 25, 2008) — A new study completed by the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) on effects of mobile phone radiation on human skin strengthens the results of the human cell line analyses: living tissue responds to mobile phone radiation. Earlier studies have shown that mobile phone radiation (radiofrequency modulated electromagnetic fields; RF-EMF) alters protein...

We're often interested in comparing things--predicting a known difference is a good way to test our methods. Then, once we're pretty confident that things work, we want to predict ways to change the way proteins interact. Changing a system in a defined way is both a good tool for biological insight and the basis for a lot of medical treatments. In this particular case, we're interested in the "selectivity" of ligand binding by a protein: the protein is known to bind one small molecule ("ligand") much better than another. So project 3903/3905 is a pair of projects comparing the protein-small...

When man began eating meat, there was only one way to preserve it, and that was to dry it. Over time it became what we know today as "Beef Jerky". http://www.gomestic.com/Cooking/How-to-Make-Perfect-Homemade-Beef-Jerky.44738

Folding@home will announce this week that it has offically joined the ranks of PetaFLOP computing! While teasing with the mark before, this appears to be the real deal. A formal announcement should come this week from Stanford University as the numbers are crosschecking for publication. Why does this matter? Because every computer and PS3 that has joined the fight to research Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease puts us that much closer to a CURE for these brain wasting diseases. Imagine if Ronald Reagan was strong for another 10 years in retirement and had been fully able to participate after his...

Source: University of Oregon Released: Mon 13-Aug-2007, 15:00 ET Scientists Re-trace Evolution Via Ancient Protein Newswise — Scientists have determined for the first time the atomic structure of an ancient protein, revealing in unprecedented detail how genes evolved their functions. "Never before have we seen so clearly, so far back in time," said project leader Joe Thornton, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oregon. "We were able to see the precise mechanisms by which evolution molded a tiny molecular machine at the atomic level, and to reconstruct the order of events by which history unfolded." The work involving the...

Finding could set the stage for ways to reverse damage in sufferers of the inherited fragile X syndromeIn a case of life imitating art, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) reported today that they had successfully reversed mental retardation in mice, just as scientists did in the classic 1966 novel Flowers for Algernon. In the book by Daniel Keyes, scientists use experimental surgery—first tested on a mouse named Algernon—to dramatically boost the intelligence of a mentally retarded janitor named Charlie Gordon. Now M.I.T. scientists report in Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences USA that they ameliorated...

Close window Published online: 12 April 2007; | doi:10.1038/news070409-11 Dinosaur protein sequencedLucky find shows up record-breaking fossil.Heidi Ledford Digging through the rock in Montana yielded the surprise find. Science Palaeontologists have sequenced some protein from a 68-million-year-old fossilized Tyrannosaurus rex bone. The protein — a key component of bone and connective tissue called collagen — blasts the record for the oldest protein ever sequenced. Before this, the oldest sequenced protein (also collagen) came from a mammoth fossil that was 100,000-300,000 years old. So the new find, reported this week in the journal Science1, is quite a surprise. Scientists hope...

Source: Washington University School of Medicine Date: January 27, 2007 Disabling Key Protein May Give Physicians Time To Treat Pneumonic Plague Science Daily — The deadly attack of the bacterium that causes pneumonic plague is significantly slowed when it can't make use of a key protein, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report in this week's issue of Science. Scanning electron micrograph depicting a mass of Yersinia pestis bacteria (the cause of bubonic plague) in the foregut of the flea vector. (Credit: Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIAID, NIH) Speed is a primary concern in pneumonic plague, which...

Scientists at Harvard University have developed a computer model that, for the first time, can fully map and predict how small proteins fold into three-dimensional, biologically active shapes. The work could help researchers better understand the abnormal protein aggregation underlying some devastating diseases, as well as how natural proteins evolved and how proteins recognize correct biochemical partners within living cells. The technique, which can track protein folding for some 10 microseconds -- about as long as some proteins take to assume their biologically stable configuration, and at least a thousand times longer than previous methods -- is described this week...

A US halloween festival has sparked a row by offering free admission to anyone who eats a live, Madagascar hissing cockroach.The stunt by the annual Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom's Fright Fest in Louisville has been met with protests of both child and animal cruelty. Some say it targets poor children and is a form of child abuse, while an animal rights group says it's cruel to cockroaches. But the amusement park claims to have received only a "minimal number of complaints" and has no intentions of canceling it, said park spokeswoman Carolyn Gaeta McLean. "People complaining are not going to...

The flow of copper in the brain has a previously unrecognized role in cell death, learning and memory, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The researchers' findings suggest that copper and its transporter, a protein called Atp7a, are vital to human thinking. They speculate that variations in the genes coding for Atp7a, as well as other proteins of copper homeostasis, could partially account for differences in thinking among individuals. Using rat and mouse nerve cells to study the role of copper in the brain, the researchers found that the Atp7a protein shuttles copper to...

DVDs coated with a layer of protein could one day hold so much information that storing data on your computer hard drive will be obsolete, says a US-based researcher. He says that the protein layer, made from tiny genetically altered microbe proteins, could allow DVDs and other external devices to store terabytes of information. Professor V Renugopalakrishnan of the Harvard Medical School in Boston reported his findings at the International Conference on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in Brisbane this week. "What this will do eventually is eliminate the need for hard drive memory completely," he says. Renugopalakrishnan says high-capacity storage devices...

Immortality is within our grasp . . . In Fantastic Voyage, high-tech visionary Ray Kurzweil teams up with life-extension expert Terry Grossman, M.D., to consider the awesome benefits to human health and longevity promised by the leading edge of medical science--and what you can do today to take full advantage of these startling advances. Citing extensive research findings that sound as radical as the most speculative science fiction, Kurzweil and Grossman offer a program designed to slow aging and disease processes to such a degree that you should be in good health and good spirits when the more extreme...

REGULAR meals of mammoth meat helped some early human tribes to expand more quickly than their largely vegetarian contemporaries, according to a genetic study. Human populations in east Asia about 30,000 years ago developed at dramatically different rates, following a pattern that appears to reflect the availability of mammoths and other large game. In the part of the region covering what is now northern China, Mongolia and southern Siberia, vast plains teemed with mammals such as mammoths, mastodons and woolly rhinoceroses and the number of early human beings grew between 34,000 and 20,000 years ago. Further south, where the terrain...

A CUSTOMER says she found a dead frog in a pre-mixed Caesar salad bought from a Brisbane supermarket. Julie Lumber, of Springfield in Brisbane's west, today said she was preparing for a barbecue when the green intruder dropped out of a Caesar salad "with the works" bought from Coles at the weekend. "I opened up the bag and the frog fell out on the side of the plate. "I just went 'oh my god' and then we had a laugh about it. "I couldn't stomach French food with the frogs legs and snails and I wasn't about to try it...

Deactivating a specific gene transforms meek mice into daredevils, researchers have found. The team believe the research might one day enable people suffering from fear – in the form of phobias or anxiety disorders, for example – to be clinically treated. The research found that mice lacking an active gene for the protein stathmin are not only more courageous, but are also slower to learn fear responses to pain-associated stimuli, says geneticist Gleb Shumyatsky, at Rutgers University in New Jersey, US. In the experiments, the stathmin-lacking mice wandered out into the centre of an open box, in defiance of the...

STANFORD, Calif. - Tumor-suppressor proteins work to inhibit tumor growth in our bodies and when they win, they spare us a battle with cancer. But one such protein, menin, appears to have a split personality. Though menin is well-known for its ability to suppress endocrine tumors, researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered that it is also a key player in the development of some forms of acute leukemia. The researchers, who made the discovery in working with mouse cells, say this is the first time a tumor-suppressor protein has been found to have such a dramatic dual...

Randall Robinson, an activist and Harvard-educated lawyer whose past activities include founding the TransAfrica organization, encouraging black Americans to sue for reparations, and then loudly emigrating in protest from the U.S. to the Caribean island of St. Kitts, now claims that black Hurricane victims are "eating corpses to survive." A quick scan of major news networks and a Google search on the phrase "hurricane victims eating corpses to survive" uncovers absolutely no support for this outrageous claim. While that's hardly the final word when it comes to proof, it's more evidence than Robinson offers for his bizarre claim. Ordinarily, I...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- While a breakthrough for humans could be years away, a new study in mice suggests some memory recovery may be possible in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. "There basically are two prongs and we need to deal with both," said lead researcher Karen Ashe, a University of Minnesota neurologist. "What we're showing is that there are neurons which are affected (by Alzheimer's) but not dead." New research shows a mutant protein named tau is poisoning brain cells, and that blocking its production may allow some of those sick neurons to recover. It worked in demented mice...

http://www.rettsyndrome.org/ My daughter Gabriella was diagnosed with Rett syndrome today. The two links explain what it is technically better than I can. The symptoms are regressive. They begin rapidly regressing at age 2 my daughter is 20 months. After regression their is little to no motor skills and communication along with severe retardation. This all seems to be caused by lack of a protein called mecp2. They are beginning to experiment on mice. Knowing the FDA that means many years till treatment comes out. Can anyone answer these questions. Is it true that protein we eat is broken down into...

Pet store animals cooked in school Fri Jan 21 2005 08:35:35 ET A Guinea pig and rabbit purchased from a Geauga County pet store ended up on plates at a Cleveland area high school. A 16-year-old student skinned and cooked the animals during a living skills class on Wednesday, prompting student and parent complaints to the Thompson Township Police Department and Geauga Humane Society. Officials at both agencies said they are investigating. Friday editions of the CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER detail how the incident may warrant animal cruelty charges. Geauga Humane Officer Sarah Westman said it's illegal to needlessly kill "companion...

San Diego scientists have identified a protein in embryonic stem cells that helps weed out mutations as the cells proliferate. Its action may protect a developing embryo from DNA damage that could lead to cancer later in life. The protein is called p53. The researchers, studying embryonic stem cells taken from mice, found that p53 prompts defective stem cells to begin changing into specific types of cells in the body. These defective cells started to show characteristics of neuron cells. Having crossed that threshold, they lost their ability to replicate indefinitely and pass along the mutations. "What we discovered is...

Tumor-Starving Protein Identified By Karen Pallarito HealthDay Reporter FRIDAY, June 18 (HealthDayNews) -- Researchers in Colorado say they have identified a protein that thwarts the growth of new blood vessels that feed and enlarge tumors. The protein, called fibulin-5, occurs naturally in the body, but researchers say a slightly altered version proved even more effective in arresting blood vessel growth. The protein works by choking off the nutrient and oxygen supply to tumors, preventing the cancer from growing and spreading to other parts of the body. Researchers believe it could one day be developed as a drug to treat cancer...

Woman finds mouse in vegetable soup A woman is startled to find a mouse in her soup at Cracker Barrel. How it got there remains a mystery. By Peter Dujardin Daily Press May 10 2004, 6:36 PM EDT A woman enjoying an early Mother's Day lunch at a Newport News restaurant Saturday discovered a mouse in a bowl of vegetable soup. Carla Patterson was eating with her two sons and her godson at the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store restaurant, on Jefferson Avenue across from the Patrick Henry Mall, when she scooped up a small, black mouse, about an inch...

NEW YORK (AP) - No more junk food for Bill Clinton - at least not for now. The former president, whose White House tenure was accompanied by the staples of America's fast-food industry, showed up at his Harlem office Wednesday looking lean, but not mean. With a wide grin on his face after a news conference to announce a new AIDS initiative, he deadpanned: ``No beer.'' His dark business suit jacket swung open to reveal a flatter stomach, replacing the onetime presidential paunch. Clinton said he's been following ``The South Beach Diet,'' and ``working out with a German man.'' But...

A year ago, a mystery virus began to kill people in China. Causing an illness dubbed severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the virus quickly spread beyond Asia and for a few months stirred fears of a worldwide epidemic. With stunning speed, scientists identified the virus and decoded its genetic sequence (SN: 4/26/03, p. 262: http://www.sciencenews.org/20030426/fob8.asp). Now, a research team has claimed victory in the race to identify the cellular receptor—the protein to which the virus attaches when it infects cells—for the SARS virus. Since the protein turned out to be a well-known one that had previously been implicated in heart...

<p>WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- Nutritionists are urging the top 10 U.S. hospitals to ban the Atkins diet, reports said Friday.</p> <p>The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine announced Friday in Washington it hopes the hospitals will emulate England's Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, which is eliminating the controversial diet from its menus, fearing a link to kidney damage.</p>

An X-ray showing a fork lodged sideways in the stomach of a 32-year-old woman who accidently swallowed it while using it to scoop a cockroach out of her throat, in the northern Israeli town of Tiberias on July 10.

Now, food companies and retailers are hoping for similar happy results by focusing on products that fit the Atkins plan. But some of those sales gains are coming at the expense of companies whose foods aren't Atkins-friendly. :VERY LARGE BREAK IN ARTICLE: A low for carbs The Atkins boom worries companies that depend on carbohydrates – such as pasta, tortilla and bread makers. Pasta consumption is still growing, but hardly at the carbo-loading inspired rates of the 1980s, according to American Italian Pasta Co., the largest U.S. pasta maker. "Our industry would be growing faster if not for the Atkins...

"Lammentations of a Dieter" Posted by Doc Farmer < http://www.chronwatch.com/site_search.asp?auth=90 > Saturday, May 24, 2003 I've made no secret of the fact that I'm fat, bald, and ugly. For those who think I'm putting myself down, though, I'm not. There's a difference between that and simple honesty of self. If I can't be honest with myself, how can I be expected to be honest with anybody else? That said, though, I don't like being fat. Bald is okay, mind you (thank God for the Gillette Mach 3) and ugly keeps me from being mistaken for a Hollywood type. But fat...

LONDON (Reuters) - Forget the tigers, the elephants and the dancing bears. Cirque du Soleil will never travel the world with performing animals. "We don't agree with the way the animals are dressed to do their tricks. We prefer to give jobs to human beings," said Pierre Parisien from the renowned Quebec troupe that has inspired a circus renaissance around the globe. "They are animals, not performers. They should be in the jungle," the artistic director of the troupe's "Saltimbanco" show told Reuters after its London opening this week. "We do not agree with the way they are trained...

A relatively new meat alternative derived from a fungus is popping up in grocery stores across the United States and nutritionists say it could provide a welcome and healthful change to soy-based products for vegetarians or people looking to lower their meat intake.Quorn, as the product is called, is composed of protein from a fungus, egg whites and milk protein. Most other meat alternatives are made from soybeans. The line of Quorn products, manufactured by Marlow Foods of the United Kingdom, includes imitations of chicken nuggets, chicken breasts and ground beef. The meat substitute was launched in the U.S. market...

October 25, 2002 Contact: Sharon Butler, (312) 355-2522, sbutler@uic.edu Bacterial Protein Kills Tumors The use of live bacteria to treat cancer goes back a hundred years. But while the therapy can sometimes shrink tumors, the treatment usually leads to toxicity, limiting its value in medicine. Now, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have isolated a protein secreted by bacteria that kills cancer cells but appears to have no harmful side effects. Tested in mice injected with human melanomas, the protein shrank the malignancies, but, in contrast with other studies using whole bacteria, caused no deaths or adverse reactions...

Reprinted from ScienceDaily Magazine ...Source:             University Of Texas Southwestern Medical Center At Dallas Date Posted:    Thursday, August 15, 2002Web Address:   http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/08/020815072837.htm Protein Transforms Sedentary Muscles Into Exercised Muscles, Researchers Report DALLAS – Aug. 15, 2002 – Researchers have discovered a second protein found in skeletal muscle that can transform sedentary muscles into energy-producing, exercised muscles. Researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and Harvard Medical School reported in a study in today's issue of Nature that when the protein PGC-1Q is genetically introduced in mice, easily fatigued type II muscle fibers are transformed into fatigue-resistant, mitochondria-rich, or energy-producing, type I muscle fibers...

JULY 19, 2002 Beijing pest is also a tasty, crunchy treat BEIJING - They are flying about the capital in swarms, and residents are capturing them by the bagful. They're filled with protein and, some say, are delicious - and crunchy - when deep-fried. Beijing's summer locusts have arrived, though experts say the sand-hued, beady-eyed bugs are more of a nuisance this year than a danger to crops. The insects, from the outskirts of Beijing or Inner Mongolia, are not the destructive migratory species which laid waste to millions of hectares of farmland around the country earlier this year, said...

f the members of the American medical establishment were to have a collective find-yourself-standing-naked-in-Times-Square-type nightmare, this might be it. They spend 30 years ridiculing Robert Atkins, author of the phenomenally-best-selling ''Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution'' and ''Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution,'' accusing the Manhattan doctor of quackery and fraud, only to discover that the unrepentant Atkins was right all along. Or maybe it's this: they find that their very own dietary recommendations -- eat less fat and more carbohydrates -- are the cause of the rampaging epidemic of obesity in America. Or, just possibly this: they find out both of the...