Microbiologists improve taste of beer

05-Oct-2022 - Belgian investigators have improved the flavor of contemporary beer by identifying and engineering a gene that is responsible for much of the flavor of beer and some other alcoholic drinks.The researchappears inApplied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for ...

Air pollution and stress alter brain development and social behavior in male mice

Smog and stress while pregnant alters brain connections in developing male mice, but not females, leading to autism-like social behavior

08-Aug-2022 - Naval oceanographer Carina Block had a hunch that the jet exhaust fumes she and her fellow female sailors were regularly exposed to, combined with unavoidable job stress, was leading to adverse health outcomes for their children. A new study in mice backs up Block’s suspicion, finding that air ...

An ATM that dispenses antioxidants

Dual role of protein that watches for cellular threats and repairs damage

12-Jul-2018 - One reason we're supposed to eat a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables is because they contain nutritious compounds called antioxidants. These molecules counteract the damage to our bodies from harmful products of normal cells called reactive oxygen species (ROS). Now, research led by a ...

A new way to stimulate cellular recycling process

18-May-2018 - Brown University researchers studying the biology of aging have demonstrated a new strategy for stimulating autophagy, the process by which cells rebuild themselves by recycling their own worn-out parts. In a study the researchers show that the approach increased the lifespans of worms and flies, ...

Discovery of how HIV hedges its bets opens the door to new therapies

14-May-2018 - A stem cell is one with infinite possibilities. So, for decades, scientists have puzzled over how the cell chooses to keep being a stem cell and continue dividing, or specialize into a specific cell type, like a heart or brain cell. The same type of decision is made by HIV. When the virus infects ...

Bacteria may help babies' digestive tracts more than suspected, scientists find

09-Nov-2017 - Some of the first living things to greet a newborn baby do a lot more than coo or cuddle. In fact, they may actually help the little one's digestive system prepare for a lifetime of fighting off dangerous germs. But these living things aren't parents, grandparents or siblings - they're helpful ...

Genome architecture caught in motion

12-Oct-2017 - Researchers at The Wistar Institute have uncovered new aspects of the three-dimensional organization of the genome, specifically how the genetic material is compacted and de-compacted in a timely fashion during the different phases of the cell cycle. "We are just starting to appreciate that the ...

How does a cell maintain its identity during replication?

18-Sep-2017 - Prior to cell division, chromosomes are seemingly a jumbled mess. During cell division, parent cell chromosomes and their duplicates sort themselves out by condensing, becoming thousands of times more compact than at any other time. Researchers have long assumed that genes become "silent" during ...

How estrogen regulates gene expression

28-Aug-2017 - Estrogen hormones regulate gene expression. They achieve this by first binding to estrogen receptor in the cell nucleus, which triggers the recruitment of different molecules called coactivators in specific order. In a study a team of researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, the University of ...

New 3-D imaging reveals how human cell nucleus organizes DNA and chromatin of its genome

31-Jul-2017 - Sixty-four years ago, James Watson and Francis Crick described the now-iconic double helix structure of DNA. A team of researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies describe development and application of new electron ...