Forums: Mice Love Rice

A team of Weizmann Institute scientists has turned the tables on an autoimmune disease. In such diseases, including Crohn's and rheumatoid arthritis, the immune system mistakenly attacks the body's tissues. But the scientists managed to trick the immune systems of mice into targeting one of the body's players in autoimmune processes, an enzyme known as MMP9. The results of their research appear today in Nature Medicine. Prof. Irit Sagi of the Biological Regulation Department and her research group have spent years looking for ways to home in on and block members of the matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) enzyme family. These proteins...

Tissue with wound-like conditions allows tumors to grow and spread. In mouse lung cancer cells, treatment with silibinin, a major component of milk thistle, removed the molecular billboards that signal these wound-like conditions and so stopped the spread of these lung cancers, according to a recent study published in the journal Molecular Carcinogenesis. Though the natural extract has been used for more than 2,000 years, mostly to treat disorders of the liver and gallbladder, this is one of the first carefully controlled and reported studies to find benefit. Here is how it works:Basically, in a cell there can be a...

A natural lipid in the fluid lining the lungs inhibits influenza infections in both cell cultures and mouse models, according to researchers at National Jewish Health. These findings, combined with previous studies demonstrating effectiveness against respiratory syncytial virus, suggest that the molecule, known as POPG, may have broad antiviral activity. “Supplemental POPG could be an important, inexpensive and novel approach for the prevention and treatment of influenza and other respiratory virus infections,” said Dennis Voelker, PhD, Professor of Medicine, and senior author in the report, published online in the American journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology.

Enlarge Image Turn it on. A fused human egg cell and skin cell form an early embryo that turns on the skin cell's green fluorescent protein on day 4 of development and forms a blastocyst by day 6. Credit: Noggle et al., Nature 478 (6 October 2011) Researchers have found a new way to turn adult cells into embryonic stem (ES) cells: using human eggs, or oocytes. The feat comes after more than a decade of failed attempts, and it is still a work in progress. The resulting stem cells are not normal; they carry the genomes of both...

Enlarge Image Gene fix. Red cells in this slice of mouse liver are making a human protein called A1At. Credit: K. YUSA ET AL., NATURE (ADVANCED ONLINE EDITION) ©2011 MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS LTD. Researchers have taken a step toward showing how stem cells might one day be used to help patients born with a deadly liver disease. The researchers corrected a DNA spelling error in patient skin cells that had been converted into so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, then coaxed the cells to form liver cells that seemed to function normally in mice. The approach is still a long...

State inspectors say a New Mexico school district's food warehouse is infested with rodent droppings, food hazards and improperly placed rat poison, and district officials refused to discard the food in question. The state Environment Department says officials cited last week five "high risk violations" at the food warehouse of Gallup-McKinley County Schools. State inspector Andrew Wilson wrote in a memo that the warehouse was littered with rodent droppings throughout, contained rat poison in a walk-in refrigerator and had cases of food with ice accumulation on top.

A wayward mouse forced the grounding of a US-bound SAS flight on Tuesday, leaving 250 travellers stranded at Stockholm’s Arlanda airport as crews tried in vain to capture the rogue rodent. Police return stolen bike after 15 years (23 Aug 11) McDonald's advert fakes 'Swedish' farmland (23 Aug 11) Sweden fears swimming Danish raccoon invasion (23 Aug 11) Shortly before the scheduled 10.30am take off of the Chicago-bound Airbus 330, a security guard spotted the mischievous mouse scurrying across the floor of the aircraft. “Unfortunately the mouse has not been found and caught, despite an extensive search onboard and numerous...

For Popeye, spinach was the key to extra muscle. For the mice in a new University of Iowa study, it was apples, or more precisely a waxy substance called ursolic acid that's found in apple peel. The UI study, published in the June 8 issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, showed that ursolic acid reduced muscle atrophy (also known as muscle wasting) and promoted muscle growth in mice. It also reduced fat, blood sugar levels, cholesterol and triglycerides in the animals. The findings suggest that the compound may be useful for treating muscle wasting and possibly metabolic disorders such as...

Mice with human brains In January, an informal ethics committee at Stanford University endorsed a proposal to create mice with brains nearly completely made of human brain cells. Stem cell scientist Irving Weissman said his experiment could provide unparalleled insight into how the human brain develops and how degenerative brain diseases like Parkinson’s progress. Particularly worrisome to some scientists are the nightmare scenarios that could arise from the mixing of brain cells: What if a human mind somehow got trapped inside a sheep’s head? The “idea that human neuronal cells might participate in 'higher order' brain functions in a nonhuman...

Enlarge Image Gem of a therapy? Clusters of nanodiamonds bearing chemotherapy drugs attack cancer cells. Credit: Science/AAAS If you give a nanodiamond to your fiancée, you can forget about the wedding. But a new study reports that these tiny flecks of carbon can shrink tumors in mice by delivering chemotherapy drugs to cancer cells. Lead author Dean Ho, a biomedical engineer at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, says that one of the major challenges in chemotherapy is when tumor cells develop mechanisms to pump drugs right back out. But Ho reasoned that when the drug is bound to a...

GUMC neuroscientists say their novel gene therapy shows that clearing toxic proteins inside brain cells prevents plaque formation outside neuronsWashington, D.C. – Gene therapy that boosts the ability of brain cells to gobble up toxic proteins prevents development of Alzheimer's disease in mice that are predestined to develop it, report researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center. They say the treatment – which is given just once - could potentially do the same in people at the beginning stages of the disease. The study, published online in Human Molecular Genetics, demonstrates that giving brain cells extra parkin genes promotes efficient and...

The teeming trillions of bacteria in the digestive tracts of mice have been shown to affect the animals' brain development and behaviour.Mice bred in sterile environments without these "gut flora" were seen to be more adventurous and less anxious than mice with normal gut flora. The research adds weight to the idea that gut bacteria are a critical part of the overall development of mammals.

Harvard scientists were surprised that they saw a dramatic reversal, not just a slowing down, of the ageing in mice. Now they believe they might be able to regenerate human organs Scientists claim to be a step closer to reversing the ageing process after rejuvenating worn out organs in elderly mice. The experimental treatment developed by researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, turned weak and feeble old mice into healthy animals by regenerating their aged bodies. The surprise recovery of the animals has raised hopes among scientists that it may be possible to achieve a similar feat...

And Remember How The Lib's Proclaimed Obama As So Brilliant! So Intelligent!, Oh really? Then why can't he answer questions from the press on a regular basis?,it seems he will only take "Pre-Selected Questions" from a "Selected Press" AT HIS TIME & CONVENIENCE! After seeing Hillary take questions today,why don't we just put her in office and make Obama the "Secretary Of Teleprompters"?

The human brain is truly awesome.A typical, healthy one houses some 200 billion nerve cells, which are connected to one another via hundreds of trillions of synapses. Each synapse functions like a microprocessor, and tens of thousands of them can connect a single neuron to other nerve cells. In the cerebral cortex alone, there are roughly 125 trillion synapses, which is about how many stars fill 1,500 Milky Way galaxies. This is a visual reconstruction from array-tomography data of synapses in the mouse somatosensory cortex, which is responsive to whisker stimulation.(Credit: Stephen Smith/Stanford) These synapses are, of course, so tiny...

Research team at UH sees novel changes in retinal anatomy, results published in high-impact journalHOUSTON, Oct. 25, 2010 – Some unexpected effects of lead exposure that may one day help prevent and reverse blindness have been uncovered by a University of Houston (UH) professor and his team. Donald A. Fox, a professor of vision sciences in UH's College of Optometry (UHCO), described his team's findings in a paper titled "Low-Level Gestational Lead Exposure Increases Retinal Progenitor Cell Proliferation and Rod Photoreceptor and Bipolar Cell Neurogenesis in Mice," published recently online in Environmental Health Perspectives and soon to be published in...

Now, for the first time, researchers are using diabetes and "cure" in the same sentence. Doctor Donald Jump at Oregon State University eliminated diet-induced diabetes -- or type two diabetes -- in lab mice. "We saw that certain enzymes were being repressed by the high-fat diet," Donald Jump, Ph.D., department of nutrition and exercise sciences, said. The enzyme he's talking about is called fatty acid elongase-five. The more fat we eat, the less of the enzyme we produce. So, when researchers boosted the production of the enzyme in mice livers, they were cured of their diabetes in five days. "The...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Persistent exposure to light at night may lead to weight gain, even without changing physical activity or eating more food, according to new research in mice. Researchers found that mice exposed to a relatively dim light at night over eight weeks had a body mass gain that was about 50 percent more than other mice that lived in a standard light-dark cycle. "Although there were no differences in activity levels or daily consumption of food, the mice that lived with light at night were getting fatter than the others," said Laura Fonken, lead author of the study...

US authorities are trying to get rid of venomous snakes in its territory of Guam in the Pacific Ocean by 'bombing' the island with poisoned mice. Using helicopters from its Naval Base in Guam, scientists from the US department of agriculture have dropped mice packed with acetaminophen into the jungles in a ploy to rid Guam of its population of brown tree snakes, Fox News reported citing military news outlet Stars and Stripes. Guam's snake problem began in the 1980s, when the creatures arrived on the island accidentally in military cargo. The drug has already undergone extensive testing, said Dan...

"The difference [with the mice with human brain cells] is that, instead of splicing in bits of DNA, scientists are stuffing in cells," said McGee, the bioethicist. "Critics of this research would have you believe that to grow our cells in other creatures is repugnant and inhumane. Mice already grow human ears and are used in many experiments to grow colonies of other human cells," McGee said.

For all the Christine O'Donnell critics, bashers, AND SMEAR-MONGERS who are engaging in the 'Politics of Personal Destruction' by spreading innuendos and smears regarding a video where Christine O'Donnell makes comments about cross-breeding, I present the following: -"Irving Weissman of Stanford University and his colleagues pioneered these chimera experiments in 1988 when they created mice with fully human immune systems for the study of AIDS. Later, the Stanford group and StemCells, Inc., which Weissman co-founded, also transplanted human stem cells into the brains of newborn mice as preliminary models for neural research. And working with foetal sheep, Esmail Zanjani of...

Christine O'Donnell believes scientists have created mice with fully functional human brains O'Donnell is Republican candidate for the US Senate (Delaware)

THIS IS FOR NEWS - NOT FOR ADVERTISEMENT purposes ...... ...... ...... "The Labstamp applies automated tail tattoos for mouse identification. The features are as follows: Reliable, legible identification * Human readable permanent tail tattoo * 46,656 unique alpha-numeric IDs * Green ink for pigmented animals Safe for the animal * Designed for mice 14 days and older * No anesthesia required Easy to use * 10 minutes of training to apply the ID * No training to read the ID Eliminates human variability * Automated machine to apply the ID * Consistent ID quality and readability "

A drug developed at the University of Kansas has the potential to stop a debilitating condition of diabetes that often leads to pain in the extremities and even amputations, KU researchers have found.

Feeding obese mice omega-3 fatty acids reduced inflammation that can lead to diabetes, a new study finds. By studying fat tissue in the mice consuming fish oil, researchers found omega-3 fatty acids seem to act on a particular receptor on cells, GPR120, which, when activated, blocks inflammatory processes. Chronic inflammation can lead to insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes. Therefore, "if we can fix the inflammation part, it's possible that we could prevent insulin resistance or even ameliorate diabetes," Talukdar explained.