Utah biologists discover that tiny tropical fish’s “superpower” lies in an immune response to heart injuries.
A heart attack will leave a permanent scar on a human heart, yet other animals, including some fish and amphibians, can clear cardiac scar tissue and regrow damaged muscle as adults. (more…)
ANN ARBOR — A tiny, transparent fish embryo and a string of surprises led scientists to a deeper understanding of the perplexing link between low calcium and colon cancer.
By studying zebrafish embryo skin, University of Michigan researchers decoded cell messages underlying abnormal colonic cell growth of the kind that can lead to tumors and colon cancer in calcium deficient individuals. They have also tested this new mechanism in human colon cancer cells. (more…)
Understanding the damage that pollution causes to both wildlife and human health is set to become much easier thanks to a new green-glowing zebrafish.
Created by a team from the University of Exeter, the fish makes it easier than ever before to see where in the body environmental chemicals act and how they affect health.
The fluorescent fish has shown that oestrogenic chemicals, which are already linked to reproductive problems, impact on more parts of the body than previously thought.
The research by the University of Exeter and UCL (University College London) is published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. (more…)
COLUMBUS, Ohio – An abnormally low level of a protein in certain nerve cells is linked to movement problems that characterize the deadly childhood disorder spinal muscular atrophy, new research in animals suggests.
Spinal muscular atrophy, or SMA, is caused when a child’s motor neurons – nerve cells that send signals from the spinal cord to muscles – produce insufficient amounts of what is called survival motor neuron protein, or SMN. This causes motor neurons to die, leading to muscle weakness and the inability to move. (more…)
