A Whiff of Mad Cow

piggy submitted, created time 2 weeks 22 hours (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

Talk about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Misfolded proteins known as prions cause mad cow disease and other fatal neurodegenerative illnesses. But in their properly folded form, the proteins may be important to survival, helping mice and other animals keep their sniffing skills sharp, new research shows.

Prions get the bad reputation--and the lion's share of research attention--but interest in the normal form of prion proteins is increasing

3 comments | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: neurodegenerative illnesses neuroscience proteomics protein folding prion diseases mad cow disease olfaction smell PrPc neurons prions

New Anti-cancer Components of Extra-virgin Olive Oil Revealed

piggy submitted, created time 3 weeks 20 hours (www.sciencedaily.com)

Good quality extra-virgin olive oil contains health-relevant chemicals, called "phytochemicals, that can trigger cancer cell death. New research sheds more light on the suspected association between olive oil-rich Mediterranean diets and reductions in breast cancer risk.

Javier Menendez from the Catalan Institute of Oncology and Antonio Segura-Carretero from the University of Granada in Spain led a team of researchers who set out to investigate which parts of olive oil were most active against cancer

Submit comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: cancer cells cancer treatments risk factors prevention food cancer women's health breast cancer HER2 phenols monounsaturated fat olive oil HER2 phytochemicals extra-virgin olive oil

New technique is quantum leap forward in understanding proteins

piggy submitted, created time 2 weeks 1 day (www.eurekalert.org)

In this ongoing quest, a group of Scripps Research Institute scientists, along with colleagues from the University of California, San Diego, (UCSD) have borrowed from physics to deliver one of those research rarities—an unmitigated success. The group has devised a computational method that, with remarkable accuracy, predicts how bacterial proteins fold and interact

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Structure of New Botulism Nerve Toxin Subtype Revealed

piggy submitted, created time 6 days 7 hours (www.sciencedaily.com)

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have determined the atomic-level structure of a third subtype of botulinum neurotoxin — a deadly toxin produced by certain bacteria that causes the disease botulism. It is also used in cosmetic and therapeutic applications such as reducing wrinkles and calming a hyperactive bladder

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Scientists Pull Protein's Tail to Curtail Cancer

piggy submitted, created time 6 days 7 hours (www.sciencedaily.com)

When researchers look inside human cancer cells for the whereabouts of an important tumor-suppressor, they often catch the protein playing hooky, lolling around in cellular broth instead of muscling its way out to the cells’ membranes and foiling cancer growth.

This phenomenon of delinquency puzzled scientists for a long time — until a cell biologist in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine felt compelled to genetically grab the protein by the tail and then watched as it got back to work at tamping down disease

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