A gene study has rubbished theories that men will eventually become extinct because the Y chromosome which determines maleness is shrinking.
The men-are-doomed scenario leapt to prominence nearly a decade ago when scientists found that the male chromosome had dramatically shrivelled.
It had plummeted from a super-Y of more than 1,400 genes, several hundred million years ago, to a nubby little stump with just several dozen.
That discovery triggered opinion that the Y was on the skids....
A gene study has rubbished theories that men will eventually become extinct because the Y chromosome which determines maleness is shrinking.
The men-are-doomed scenario leapt to prominence nearly a decade ago when scientists found that the male chromosome had dramatically shrivelled.
It had plummeted from a super-Y of more than 1,400 genes, several hundred million years ago, to a nubby little stump with just several dozen.
That discovery triggered opinion that the Y was on the skids....
Recent research has pointed out that proteins on the surface of nerve cells help us sense different temperatures.
Scientists have discovered how just a few of these proteins, called ion channels, distinguish perhaps dozens of discrete temperatures from mildly warm to very hot.
Ion channels are pores in cell membranes controlling the flow of charged ions, which turns (nerve cell) neuron signalling on or off -- in this case to inform the body of the temperature the neuron senses, the Journal of Biological Chemistry reported....
Researchers have long sought to find out how deafening affects the vocal nerve cells.
Using a protein isolated from jellyfish that can make songbird nerve cells glow bright green when viewed under a laser-powered microscope, they were able to determine that deafening triggered rapid changes to the tiny connections between nerve cells, called synapses, which are only one thousandth of a millimeter across.
"I was very surprised that the weakening of connections between nerve cells was ...
A test to trace hard-to-detect residues of sarin, a nerve agent used by terrorists, back to its source, has been developed by scientists.
For instance, sarin leaves traces after an attack but there has been no practical way of tracing the residues back to their actual source.
Sarin is a manmade nerve agent, the most toxic and rapidly acting of the known chemical warfare agents. It is a clear, colourless, odourless and tasteless liquid that can evaporate into gas, the journal Analytical Chemistry reports....
Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia may spread within nerve networks in the brain, suggests study.
The researchers behind the study were led by neurologist and MacArthur Foundation "genius award" recipient William Seeley, MD, from the UCSF Memory and Aging Center, and post-doctoral fellow Helen Juan Zhou, PhD, now a faculty member at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore.
They concluded that a nerve region's connectedness to a disease hot spot trumps overall connectedness, ...
Chronic diarrhea is a common symptom that occurs when the intestines are not able to properly process our diet.
Chronic diarrhea can also be inherited, most commonly through conditions with genetic components such as irritable bowel syndrome. Researchers in Norway, India, and at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology have identified one heritable DNA mutation that leads to chronic diarrhea and bowel inflammation.
Shawn Levy, Ph.D., faculty investigator at HudsonAlpha said, "Based on ...
A new study conducted by a group of American researchers suggests that a high-fat diet may lead to formation of new nerve cells in the brain which may trigger weight gain. Researchers from the John Hopkins University School of Medicine found that giving a high fat diet to a group of mice led to the increased production of nerve cells in the region of the brain which regulates eating. On stopping the production of these new cells by using a carefully targeted laser, the researchers found that ...
Certain disorders of the nerve and muscles, including Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) can be effectively treated by intravenous immune globulin (IVIg).
These recommendations are contained in a guideline issued by the American Academy of Neurology. The guideline is published in the March 27, 2012, print issue of iNeurology/iA (Regd) , the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
IVIg is a type of immunotherapy that fights the misdirected immune system. It is not well understood exactly ...
Response to treatment with antifolates may be predicted by testing patients with non-small cell lung cancer for both mutations and amplifications of the KRAS gene prior to therapy.
These findings are contained in the updated results of a preclinical study presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2012, held here March 31 - April 4.
Patients, especially those with lung cancer, who have KRAS gene mutations have a worse prognosis and do not respond well to targeted therapies, according to Sarah Bacus, Ph....
A mutation limited to brain tissue that causes hemimegalencephaly (HMG) has been discovered by scientists.
HMG is a condition where one half of the brain is enlarged and dysfunctional, leading to intellectual disability and severe epilepsy.
The research, published by Cell Press in the April 12 issue of INeuron/I, has broad significance as a potential model for other complex neuropsychiatric diseases that may also be caused by "brain-only" mutations.
Mutations can be inherited or occur spontaneously....
A new class of molecular mutation in various forms of breast cancer has been discovered by Mayo Clinic researchers. This finding that may shed new light on development and growth of different types of breast tumors. Called fusion transcripts, the mutated forms of RNA may also provide a way to identify tumor subtypes and offer new strategies to treat them, investigators say.
Their study, published in the April 15 issue of iCancer Research/i, is the first to systematically search for ...
A team of Canadian, American and Australian scientists have found that blocking a protein that causes acute nerve damage could be key in preventing the development of Multiple Sclerosis (MS).
Some of MS symptoms are blurred vision, eye ache, blindness, partial or mild paralysis, jerking and twitching muscles, tingling, buzzing and vibration sensations, male and female impotence, irregular bowel movements, swallowing problems, etc.
MS is estimated to affect up to 2.5 million people worldwide....
Researchers have discovered the genetic mutation causing a rare, inherited spinal muscular atrophy.
"Typical spinal muscular atrophies begin in infancy or early childhood and are fatal, involving all motor neurons, but SMA-LED predominantly affects nerve cells controlling muscles of the legs. It is not fatal and the prognosis is good, although patients usually are moderately disabled and require assistive devices such as bracing and wheelchairs throughout their lives," said Robert H. Baloh, ...
The genetic cause of a birth defect known as Hamamy syndrome has been identified by scientists.
The discovery made by scientists at A*STAR's Institute of Medical Biology (IMB), in collaboration with doctors and scientists in Jordan, Turkey, Switzerland and USA, gives new insights into common ailments such as heart disease, osteoporosis, blood disorders and possibly sterility.
Hamamy syndrome is a rare genetic disorder, which is marked by abnormal facial features (Annex A) and defects in the heart, bone, blood and reproductive cells....
While wearing skinny jeans may keep you in touch with the current fashion style it may come with an additional and unwanted benefit, nerve damage. Dr Karen Boyle from the Greater Baltimore Medical Centre revealed that skinny jeans could cause meralgia paraesthetica, a condition in which the nerve in outer thigh is damaged. Symptoms of the condition include burning or tingly sensation in the outer thigh, pain in the groin spreading to the buttocks and hyper sensitivity to warm water. Dr Boyle ...
bNutritional therapies including dietary fibers, the use of
prebiotics and probiotics can reduce gut inflammation and improve health, according
to a recent study published in the Nutrition Journal/b.
The understanding of
the factors that control energy balance (including the role of the central
nervous system) has helped in the treatment of conditions like obesity, type 2
diabetes mellitus, inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs), and cancer-associated
anorexia.
The central nervous
system ...
Exercise reduces pain related to nerve damage, suggests study.
The results support exercise as a potentially useful nondrug treatment for neuropathic pain, and suggest that it may work by reducing inflammation-promoting substances called cytokines.
The lead author of the study is Yu-Wen Chen, PhD, of China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan.
Neuropathic pain is a common and difficult-to-treat type of pain caused by nerve damage, seen in patients with trauma, diabetes, and other conditions....
Variations found in gene BTBD9, which is associated with restless leg syndrome (RLS) in humans, leads to disturbed sleep in fruit flies, a new study reveals.
The same mutations in BTBD9 also reduce levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the flies. Some kind of deficiency in dopamine signaling is thought to lie behind RLS in humans.
The results are published in the journal ICurrent Biology./I
"Flies and humans are distant from each other on the evolutionary tree, yet the same ...
