MU-developed “Lameness Locator” system helps diagnose lameness sooner, makes treatment easier
COLUMBIA, Mo. — The most common ailment to affect a horse is lameness. A University of Missouri equine veterinarian has developed a way to detect this problem using a motion detection system called the “Lameness Locator.” Now, Kevin Keegan, a professor of equine surgery in the College of Veterinary Medicine at MU, has found that his Lameness Locator can detect lameness earlier than veterinarians using the traditional method of a subjective eye test. (more…)
Scientists have for the first time watched and manipulated stem cells as they regenerate tissue in an uninjured mammal, Yale researchers report July 1 online in the journal Nature.
Using a sophisticated imaging technique, the researchers also demonstrated that mice lacking a certain type of cell do not regrow hair. The same technique could shed light on how stem cells interact with other cells and trigger repairs in a variety of other organs, including lung and heart tissue.
“This tells us a lot about how the tissue regeneration process works,” said Valentina Greco, assistant professor of genetics and of dermatology at the Yale Stem Cell Center, researcher for the Yale Cancer Center and senior author of the study. (more…)
A new study indicates that mass extinctions affect the pace of evolution, not just in the immediate aftermath of catastrophe, but for millions of years to follow. The study’s authors, University of Chicago’s Andrew Z. Krug and David Jablonski, will publish their findings in the August issue of the journal Geology.
Scientists expected to see an evolutionary explosion immediately following a mass extinction, but Krug and Jablonski’s findings go far beyond that.
“There’s some general sense that the event happens, there’s some aftermath and then things return to normal,” said Krug, a research scientist in geophysical sciences at UChicago. But in reality, Krug said, “Things don’t return to what they were before. They operate at a different pace, sometimes more rapidly, other times more slowly. Evolutionary rates shift, and that shift is permanent until the next mass extinction.” (more…)
Genetic engineers and genomics researchers should welcome the news from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) where an international team of scientists has discovered a new and possibly more effective means of editing genomes. This discovery holds potentially big implications for advanced biofuels and therapeutic drugs, as genetically modified microorganisms, such as bacteria and fungi, are expected to play a key role in the green chemistry production of these and other valuable chemical products.(more…)
Adam Block of the UA’s Mount Lemmon SkyCenter brings us a rare view of the clouds wafting through our Milky Way in this Astronomy Picture of the Day.
In silhouette against the Milky Way’s faint starlight, its dusty molecular clouds likely contain raw material to form hundreds of thousands of stars, prompting astronomers to eagerly search the clouds for telltale signs of star birth.
This telescopic close-up looks toward the region at a fragmented Aquila dark cloud complex identified as LDN 673, stretching across a field of view slightly wider than the full moon.
For this image selected by NASA as the June 29 Astronomy Picture of the Day, astrophotographer Adam Block of the University of Arizona’s Mount Lemmon SkyCenter remotely operated the 32-inch Schulmann Telescope to peer into the vast chasms of gas and dust wafting through the Milky Way, exposing for about 15 minutes at a time during several nights in April and May. (more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — You’d be amazed at how much you can learn from a plant.
In a paper published this week in the journal Science, a Michigan State University professor and a colleague discuss why if humans are to survive as a species, we must turn more to plants for any number of valuable lessons.
“Metabolism of plants provides humans with fiber, fuel, food and therapeutics,” said Robert Last, an MSU professor of biochemistry and molecular biology. “As the human population grows and nonrenewable energy sources diminish, we need to rely increasingly on plants and to increase the sustainability of agriculture.” (more…)
Greg Landsberg, professor of physics at Brown, is the physics coordinator for the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) at CERN in Switzerland, part of a Brown team that includes professors David Cutts, Ultich Heintz, and Meenakshi Narain. The giant instrument’s primary mission is finding the Higgs boson, a particle whose existence would confirm the best guess physicists have made about why things have mass.(more…)
