EurekAlert! InContext Modules

Public Release: 10-Jan-2013

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Solving puzzles without a picture
One of the most difficult problems in the field of genomics is assembling short "reads" of DNA into complete chromosomes. Now an interdisciplinary group of genome and computer scientists has solved this problem, creating an algorithm that can rapidly create "virtual chromosomes" with no prior information about how the genome is organized.

Public Release: 8-Jan-2013

Biophysical Society 57th Annual Meeting
Biophysical Society announces winners of 2013 Minority Affairs Committee travel awards
The Biophysical Society has announced the winner of its Minority Affairs Committee Travel Awards to attend the Biophysical Society's 57th Annual Meeting at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, Feb. 2-6, 2013. The awards are meant to encourage participation at the Biophysical Society Annual Meeting by minority students and postdoctoral fellow currently studying biophysics. Recipients will be honored at a reception on Saturday, Feb. 2.

Public Release: 8-Jan-2013

Biophysical Society 57th Annual Meeting
Biophysical Society announces winners of 2013 international travel awards
The Biophysical Society has announced the winners of its international travel grants to attend the Biophysical Society's 57th Annual Meeting at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, Feb. 2-6, 2013. The purpose of these awards is to foster and initiate further interaction between American biophysicists and scientists working in countries experiencing financial difficulties. Recipients of this competitive award are chosen based on scientific merit and their proposed presentation at the meeting. They will be honored at a reception on Sunday, Feb. 3.

Public Release: 8-Jan-2013
Iowa State computer, electrical engineers working to help biologists cope with big data
Iowa State computer and electrical engineers are developing computing tools to help biologists analyze all the data produced by today's research instruments. An initiative launched by the College of Engineering is helping the computer specialists build teams capable of solving the big data problems and competing for mult-million dollar research grants. To date, the initiative has attracted $5.5 million for four major research projects.

National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Iowa State University

Public Release: 3-Jan-2013

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Rare form of active 'jumping genes' found in mammals
Much of the DNA that makes up our genomes can be traced back to strange rogue sequences known as transposable elements, or jumping genes, which are largely idle in mammals. But Johns Hopkins researchers report they have identified a new DNA sequence moving around in bats -- the first member of its class found to be active in mammals.

NIH/National Institute on Drug Abuse, NIH/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, NIH/National Institute of General Medical Sciences

Public Release: 3-Jan-2013

Physical Review X
How computers push on the molecules they simulate
Simulations are essential to test theories and explore what's inaccessible to direct experiment. Digital computers can't use exact, continuous equations of motion and have to slice time into chunks, so persistent errors are introduced in the form of "shadow work" that distorts the result. Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley have learned to separate the physically realistic aspects of the simulation from the artifacts of the computer method.

DOE Office of Science, National Science Foundation

Public Release: 2-Jan-2013

Medical Care
Common data determinants of recurrent cancer are broken, mislead researchers
In order to study the effectiveness or cost effectiveness of treatments for recurrent cancer, you first have to discover the patients in medical databases who have recurrent cancer. Unfortunately, the widely used algorithms to find these patients don't work.

NIH/National Cancer Institute

Public Release: 26-Dec-2012

mBio
Scientists sequence genome of pathogen responsible for pneumocystis pneumonia
Scientists have sequenced the genome of the fungus Pneumocystis jirovecii, an advancement that could help identify new targets for drugs to treat and prevent Pneumocystis pneumonia, a common and often deadly infection in immunocompromised patients.

Public Release: 21-Dec-2012
A giant puzzle with billions of pieces
Day after day, legions of microorganisms work to produce energy from waste in biogas plants. Researchers from Bielefeld University's Center for Biotechnology (CeBiTec) are taking a close look to find out which microbes do the best job. They are analyzing the entire genetic information of the microbial communities in selected biogas plants. From the beginning of 2013, the Californian Joint Genome Institute will undertake the sequencing required. The biocomputational analysis will be performed at CeBiTec.

Public Release: 20-Dec-2012

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Doing the math for how songbirds learn to sing
Scientists at Emory University and UC-San Francisco studying how songbirds stay on key have developed a statistical explanation for why some things are harder for the brain to learn than others, building the first mathematical model that uses a bird's previous sensorimotor experience to predict its ability to learn. Their results, published in PNAS, show that adult birds correct small errors in their songs more rapidly and robustly than large errors.

NIH/National Institute of Deafness and Communications Disorders, and others

Public Release: 20-Dec-2012

Nature
Sync to grow
Researchers at EMBL are one step closer to understanding how embryos develop and grow while always keeping the same proportions between their various parts. Their findings, published today in Nature, reveal that scaling of the future vertebrae in a mouse embryo is controlled by how the expression of some specific genes oscillates, in a coordinated way, between neighboring cells.

Public Release: 19-Dec-2012
Bringing big data to biodiversity
On Dec. 1, 2012, a new large scale collaborative research project "EU BON" (Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network) has started. The consortium consists of 30 research institutions from 15 European countries, Brazil, Israel, the Philippines, and more than 30 associated partners. EU BON is supported by the European Commission with €9 mio and will be coordinated by Dr. Christoph Häuser from the Museum für Naturkunde – MfN in Berlin, Germany.

Public Release: 19-Dec-2012

Nature
Unraveling the threads: Simplest cotton genome offers clues for fiber improvements
An international consortium including DOE Joint Genome Institute researchers published a high-quality draft assembly of the simplest cotton genome in the Dec. 20, 2012 issue of Nature. In the study, researchers traced the evolution of cotton and fiber development over millions of years. Additionally, bioenergy researchers hope to learn more about cellulose biosynthesis from the genome as each cotton strand is made of several cellulose coils, a target biomass for next-generation biofuels.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 18-Dec-2012

BMC Evolutionary Biology
Tracking the origins of HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus may have affected humans for much longer than is currently believed. Alfred Roca, an assistant professor in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois, thinks that the genomes of an isolated West African human population provide important clues about how the disease has evolved.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Public Release: 18-Dec-2012
Complexities of human disease targeted with $16 million in funding
Scientists at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, Australia, have received more than $16 million in Australian Government funding to pursue research into cancer, malaria, rheumatoid arthritis and the immune system, it was announced today.

National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia

Public Release: 17-Dec-2012

Journal of Bacteriology
RIT scientists decode 3 bacterial strains common to grapevines and sugarcane
Scientists at Rochester Institute of Technology have sequenced one of the first bacterial genomes associated with Jamaican sugarcane. The team also decoded two bacteria linked to Riesling grapevines. Studying the effects of organisms on crops is gaining attention as the world populations increases and concerns about food production and protection grow.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 17-Dec-2012

Psychological Medicine
Bullying by childhood peers leaves a trace that can change the expression of a gene linked to mood
A recent study by a researcher at the Centre for Studies on Human Stress at the Hôpital Louis-H. Lafontaine and professor at the Université de Montréal suggests that bullying by peers changes the structure surrounding a gene involved in regulating mood, making victims more vulnerable to mental health problems as they age.

Public Release: 17-Dec-2012

Nucleic Acids Research
CNIO researchers develop new databases for understanding the human genome
Scientists from the Structural Computational Biology Group at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre, led by Alfonso Valencia, together with French and American researchers, have published recently two articles in the journal Nucleic Acid Research that introduce two new databases for studying the human genome.

Public Release: 17-Dec-2012

Genome Research
A genetic defect in sex cells may predispose to childhood leukemia
Researchers at the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Center and the University of Montreal have found a possible heredity mechanism that predisposes children to acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common type of blood cancer in children.

Public Release: 16-Dec-2012

Nature Biotechnology
Toward a new model of the cell
Turning vast amounts of genomic data into meaningful information about the cell is the great challenge of bioinformatics, with major implications for human biology and medicine. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and colleagues have proposed a new method that creates a computational model of the cell from large networks of gene and protein interactions, discovering how genes and proteins connect to form higher-level cellular machinery.

National Institutes of Health

Public Release: 15-Dec-2012

Futures in Repoduction Conference
Report from the front lines of personalized reproductive medicine revolution
Leading international expert Piraye Yurttas Beim, Ph.D., Founder and CEO of Celmatix Inc., presented A Report from the Front Lines of the Personalized Reproductive Medicine Revolution at the Cambridge, UK Futures in Reproduction Conference, discussing how pairing "big data" analytics with genomics is helping Celmatix decipher genetic drivers of infertility to determine personalized reproductive medicine therapies and treatments plans, something already done in cancer treatment.

Celmatix Inc.

Public Release: 14-Dec-2012

New England Journal of Medicine
Fungus responsible for 5 deaths in the wake of massive tornado
A fast growing, flesh-eating fungus killed 5 people following a massive tornado that devastated Joplin, Mo., according to two new studies based on genomic sequencing by the Translational Genomics Research Institute and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Public Release: 13-Dec-2012

American Journal of Human Genetics
More than 200 genes identified for Crohn's Disease
More than two hundred gene locations have now been identified for the chronic bowel condition Crohn's Disease, in a study that analysed the entire human genome.

Public Release: 12-Dec-2012
10 researchers receive EMBO Installation Grants
Ten life science researchers will receive the 2012 EMBO Installation Grants. The grants will assist the scientists to relocate and set up their research groups in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, Portugal, and Turkey.

EMBO -- Excellence in life sciences

Public Release: 9-Dec-2012

Nature
Secrets of gentle touch revealed
Stroke the soft body of a newborn fruit fly larva ever-so-gently with a freshly plucked eyelash, and it will respond to the tickle by altering its movement -- an observation that has helped scientists at the University of California, San Francisco uncover the molecular basis of gentle touch, one of the most fundamental but least well understood of our senses.

National Institutes of Health, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and others


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