Search Results for: mutations
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- Health & Medicine
Boost in protein repair extends fly lives
In warmer-than-normal conditions, fruit flies that overproduce a protein-repair enzyme live about one-third longer than typical flies.
By John Travis - Health & Medicine
Gene Therapy for Sickle-Cell Disease?
By adding a useful gene to offset the effects of a faulty one, scientists have devised a gene therapy that prevents sickle-cell anemia in mice.
By Nathan Seppa - Health & Medicine
Team locates anthrax-receptor protein
Scientists have identified the protein that enables the anthrax toxin to attach to cells and trigger disease, while another team has mapped the molecular structure of the toxin component that does most of the damage to cells.
By Nathan Seppa -
Inbred cattle don’t look bad at all
A herd of feral cattle that hasn't had new blood for at least 300 years seems to have avoided the genetic risks of inbreeding.
By Susan Milius - Health & Medicine
Viral Survivor
Epstein-Barr virus, the cause of diseases ranging from mononucleosis to several kinds of cancer, has begun to reveal how it enters human cells and protects itself from the immune system.
By John Travis - Health & Medicine
Standing Up to Gravity
Studies in space can help physicians better understand a disorder in which patients get faint or dizzy while standing.
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Channel Surfing
The newly revealed three-dimensional structures of proteins called ion channels reveal the secrets of their crucial function.
By John Travis - Anthropology
Searching for the Tree of Babel
Researchers are using new methods of comparing languages to reveal information about the ancestry of different cultural groups and answer questions about human history.
- Health & Medicine
What Activates AIDS?
New studies suggest that a natural process called immune activation—the signaling that alerts immune cells of foreign invaders—plays a key role in explaining why infection with the human immunodeficiency virus progresses to AIDS more quickly in some people than in others.
- Health & Medicine
Honey of a Threat
An all-natural, organic food, honey has a benign–if not wholesome–image. Many people consider it a superior alternative to table sugar and corn syrup–two primary sweeteners in the U.S diet. Though attractive to bees, borage may lace its flowers nectar with toxic chemicals that could then show up in honey. James N. Roitman, USDA-ARS Comfrey, formerly […]
By Janet Raloff - Health & Medicine
Have a heart: Turn on just a single gene
One gene appears to act as the master switch in embryonic heart formation.
- Health & Medicine
Blood vessels (sans blood) shape organs
Even before they begin to carry blood, blood vessels provide signals that help spark the development of organs such as the liver.
By John Travis