ScienceBlog.com

microRNAs are a recently discovered class of small RNA molecules which have huge regulatory potential. There have been a large number of papers coming out recently showing evidence suggesting their widespread roles in basic biological processes ranging from host-pathogen interaction to oncogenesis.

Can researchers study the populations of online video games, like Everquest 2, just as they study traditional communities like Miami, Pittsburgh or Minneapolis? A research study by a University of Minnesota computer scientist and colleagues from across the country shows that online, interactive gaming communities are now so massive that they mirror traditional communities.

New findings from the nation’s largest study of diabetes in youth paint an alarming picture of disease on the rise among every racial and ethnic group studied.

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) adapts so well to the body’s defense system that any successful AIDS vaccine must keep pace with the ever-changing immunological profile of the virus, according to researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the University of Oxford in England.

Contrary to conventional medical wisdom, a new study by NYU Langone Medical Center researchers shows that healthy elderly patients with severe to profound hearing loss can undergo a surgical procedure to receive cochlear implants with minimal risk.

Folding paper into shapes such as a crane or a butterfly is challenging enough for most people. Now imagine trying to fold something that’s about a hundred times thinner than a human hair and then putting it to use as an electronic device.

Lip reading is a critical means of communication for many deaf people, but it has a drawback: Certain consonants (for example, p and b) can be nearly impossible to distinguish by sight alone.

Tactile devices, which translate sound waves into vibrations that can be felt by the skin, can help overcome that obstacle by conveying nuances of speech that can’t be gleaned from lip reading.

A new University of Georgia study suggests that health agencies investigating Salmonella illnesses should consider untreated surface water as a possible source of contamination.

Scientists from Queen Mary, University of London have discovered how changes to a frog’s immune system may be the key to beating a viral infection which is devastating frog populations across the UK.

The problem of conflicts of interest in science is not going to go away.

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) and Source MDx today announced that Source MDx’s whole blood RNA transcript-based Precision Profiles(TM) diagnostic test predicted survival in men with castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC).

Scientific knowledge is important in today’s knowledge society. Research is the guarantor of the quality of knowledge, though it is often not clear how scientific research guarantees the reliability of knowledge. How different can scientific ideals be, and how alike are they despite everything?

Teams of scientists from Australia and the United States have used yeast and mammalian cells to discover a connection between genetic and environmental causes of Parkinson’s disease.

Researchers Antonio G. Pisabarro (Professor of Microbiology) as well as José Luis Lavín and José Antonio Oguiza, from the Genetic and Microbiology Group at the Public University of Navarre, have taken part in the international project for the sequencing of the genome of the Postia placenta fungus.

In times of starvation, cells tighten their belts: they start to digest their own proteins and cellular organs. The process – known as autophagy – takes place in special organelles called autophagosomes. It is a strategy that simple yeast cells have developed as a means of survival when times get tough, and in the course of evolution, it has become a kind of self-cleaning process.

Gene p53 protects against cancer and is usually described as the most important gene in cancer research. However, scientists at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have now shown that a previously unknown gene, Wrap53, controls the activity of p53. As the regulation mechanism is relatively unexplored, the study opens up new routes to solving the mystery of cancer.

Geothermal energy is increasingly contributing to the power supply world wide. Iceland is world-leader in expanding development of geothermal utilization: in recent years the annual power supply here doubled to more than 500 MW alone in the supply of electricity.

The detailed structure of a protective ‘jacket’ that surrounds cells of the Clostridium difficile superbug, and which helps the dangerous pathogen stick to human host cells and tissues, is revealed in part in the 1 March issue of Molecular Microbiology.

Mendel solved the logic of inheritance in his monastery garden with no more technology than Darwin had in his garden at Down House. So why couldn’t Darwin have done it too? A Journal of Biology article argues that Darwin’s background, influences and research focus gave him a viewpoint that prevented him from interpreting the evidence that was all around him, even in his own work.

When Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first president of Indian origin, was appointed in 2006 he initiated a “decolonising revolution.”

In a new thesis in social anthropology at the University of Gothenburg, Anders Burman examines how the Government policy for decolonization has been interwoven with the rituals and cosmology of the indigenous population.