Tuesday, January 19, 2010

“Thousands of crows fouling Terre Haute streets - Courier-Journal” plus 3 more

“Thousands of crows fouling Terre Haute streets - Courier-Journal” plus 3 more

Thousands of crows fouling Terre Haute streets - Courier-Journal

Posted: 18 Jan 2010 09:33 PM PST

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — Thousands of crows have descended on Terre Haute, making a mess of downtown and causing trouble for business owners.

A researcher estimates that at least 32,000 crows are roosting in the city this winter, covering sidewalks and trees with droppings.

It's unknown why the crows return to the city year after year, but Indiana State University associate biology professor Peter Scott theorizes that the warmth and lights attract the birds.

Scott said the crows also might choose the city because it offers protection from predators or a source of food. He said the crows leave the city during the day to forage for food, then return to spend the night in the trees.

Downtown business owners say they're frustrated by the invasion.

They have the burden of cleaning up sidewalks in front of their buildings, as city officials say they don't have the power-washing equipment to help.

"This is really bad," said Sheila Westra of Rogers Jewelers, referring to a thick blanket of crow droppings outside the longtime downtown business.

"It looks like (an) Alfred Hitchcock movie out there" when the crows are in the trees outside the store, said co-worker Rob Robertson.

Employees say visitors to sites such as the Terre Haute Children's Museum ask whether it's safe to walk through the droppings.

According to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, droppings under crow roosts have been blamed for the spread of stomach ailments.

Downtown employees say this year's crow population is making a bigger mess than usual.

"This is the worst I've ever seen it" in nearly eight years working at the children's museum, said operations manager Patti Strong, looking at the splattered trees and sidewalk.

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Gene study puts men on fast track with the Y factor - Washington Times

Posted: 18 Jan 2010 10:56 AM PST

By Seth Borenstein ASSOCIATED PRESS

Women may think of men as primitive, but new research indicates that the Y chromosome — the thing that makes a man male — is evolving far faster than the rest of the human genetic code.

A new study comparing the Y chromosomes from humans and chimpanzees, our nearest living relatives, show they are about 30 percent different. That is far greater than the 2 percent difference between the rest of the human genetic code and that of the chimp's, according to a study released in the journal Nature.

These changes occurred in the last 6 million years or so, relatively recently when it comes to evolution.

"The Y chromosome appears to be the most rapidly evolving of the human chromosomes," said study co-author Dr. David Page, director of the prestigious Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass., and a professor of biology at MIT. "It's an almost ongoing churning of gene reconstruction. It's like a house that's constantly being rebuilt."

Before men get too impressed with themselves, lead author Jennifer Hughes offers some words of caution: Just because the Y chromosome, which determines gender, is evolving at a speedy rate doesn't necessarily mean men themselves are more evolved.

Researchers took the most detailed examination of the Y chromosome, which females do not have, of both humans and chimps and found entire sections dramatically different. There were even entire genes on the human Y chromosome that weren't on the chimp, said Ms. Hughes, also of the Whitehead Institute.

The two-year research took twice as long as expected because of the evolutionary changes found, she added.

There is a bit of a proviso to the comparison with other chromosomes. While all human and chimp chromosomes have been mapped, only two chimp chromosomes have been examined in great detail: Y and chromosome 21. Yet, there's still enough known to make the claim that the Y is the speediest evolver, the researchers said.

Until recently, the Y chromosome was considered the no-respect Rodney Dangerfield of genetics, especially because it had fewer genes than other chromosomes. A few years ago, some researchers even suggested that the Y chromosome was shrinking so that in 50,000 years it would just disappear — and so would men.

"The story is not as cut and dried as many would have liked to predict," Ms. Hughes said. "It's kind of fun to say that men are going to die out, but the science is proving — now that we've got data — that that's not true at all."

Mr. Page agreed. "The Y chromosome has many more tricks up its sleeve than it was given credit for," he said.

There are a couple of reasons the two researchers cite for the Y chromosome being such an evolutionary powerhouse. One is that it stands alone and isn't part of a pair, like 44 other chromosomes. So when there are mutations, there's no matching chromosome to recombine and essentially cover up the change, Ms. Hughes said. Because women have two X chromosomes, the X chromosome is not in the same evolutionary boat.

Another reason has to do with the nature of mating. When female chimps are in heat, they mate frequently and with many partners, so there is evolutionary pressure on the male to produce the most and best sperm to propagate his genes, Mr. Page said.

To test this out, Ms. Hughes said she hopes to soon examine the Y chromosomes of a rhesus macaque, which is fairly promiscuous, and the marmoset, which is more monogamous than early humans probably were.

Outside scientists praised the study.

R. Scott Hawley, a genetics researcher at the Stowers Institute in Kansas City, Mo., called the result "astounding."

"The Y chromosome clearly has the strength and tenacity to fight back," said Mr. Hawley, who was not part of the research. "I certainly think the Y chromosome has taken a bad rap for a long time with people doing maps showing areas for channel surfing."

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Why We Keep Looking and Looking for Lost Items - YAHOO!

Posted: 17 Jan 2010 03:58 PM PST

SUNDAY, Jan. 17 (HealthDay News) -- Looking for something? New research provides insight into why we miss things when they're uncommon.

"We know that if you don't find it often, you often don't find it," said Jeremy Wolfe of Harvard Medical School. "Rare stuff gets missed." Wolfe's comments came in a news release from Cell Press, which published a study on the phenomenon online Jan. 14 in Current Biology.

Anyone who's ever tried to find the so-called needle in a haystack knows of what he speaks. But why does this happen?

In a new study, researchers say that people who look for common things don't stop. "When nothing is there, they don't give up on the response," Wolfe said. "It's all terribly adaptive behavior for a beast in the world. If you know berries are there, you keep looking until you find them. If they are never there, you don't spend your time hunting."

When something is rare, we try hard to look for it, but "we aren't well-built for that and make more errors than we'd like," he said.

What to do in places like airports, where security screeners have to look for uncommon objects like weapons? Wolfe said it might be wise to prime people at the beginning of shifts by having them search for common things, then let them go on duty and look for rare things.

The researchers plan to test their theories in airports and in health clinics, where medical employees look for rare things like tumors.

More information

The Franklin Institute has more about the brain.

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Regulus Therapeutics Present New Pre-clinical Data from Multiple ... - Yahoo Finance

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 04:05 AM PST

CARLSBAD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Regulus Therapeutics Inc. today announced that new pre-clinical data from multiple therapeutic programs were presented at the "RNA Silencing: Mechanism, Biology and Application" Keystone Symposium held January 14 – 19, 2010 in Keystone, Colorado. Regulus and its collaborators presented data showing microRNA target regulation by anti-miRs, as well as data from therapeutic programs focused on oncology, immune disease and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection.

"The field of microRNA discovery and therapeutic development is growing exponentially and at a tipping point," said Peter S. Linsley, Ph.D., chief scientific officer of Regulus. "The company's innovative chemistries and unique understanding behind the biology of diseases caused by microRNA dysregulation positions Regulus to lead the development of a new class of high-impact medicines based on microRNA."

Oncology

In a poster titled "microRNA mimics as cancer therapeutics," Regulus scientists presented in vivo data demonstrating delivery of miR mimics and microRNA target repression in an orthotopic liver tumor mouse model. Using lipid nanoparticles developed by collaborators at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Regulus scientists demonstrated effective delivery of a miR-34a mimic to both the normal liver cells and human hepatocellular carcinoma cells growing as tumors within the liver. Microarray profiling of the livers from mice treated with the miR-34a mimic displayed a significant down-regulation of messenger RNA targets of miR-34a. Within the tumors, Regulus scientists saw a similar down-regulation of messenger RNA targets. When Regulus scientists further analyzed the down-regulated messenger RNAs for functional significance, it was discovered that several cell cycle progression and cellular division genes were over represented. This demonstrates the potential utility of a miR-34a mimic delivered by lipid nanoparticles for the treatment of liver cancer.

anti-miR target regulation in immune cells

Regulus, in an alliance with GlaxoSmithKline, presented data from immuno-inflammatory disorders program in a poster titled "Inhibition of microRNA function in macrophages by anti-miRs". The study provided the initial demonstration of a pharmacological effect in immune cells by specific microRNA inhibition. The study showed that systemically delivered anti-miRs distribute to immune cells and show functional target regulation, as measured by a statistically significant de-repression of seed-matched messenger RNA transcripts. Characterizing microRNA targets using this approach is uncovering the role that microRNAs play in cells of the immune system, and opening the door for microRNA therapies in immuno-inflammatory diseases.

Autoimmunity and Cancer

In a presentation titled "Myeloproliferative disease, autoimmunity and cancer in mice with targeted deletion of miR-146a gene" Regulus scientists and collaborators from the California Institute of Technology demonstrated the biological role of miR-146a by establishing loss- and gain-of-function mouse models. miR-146a knockout mice are born normal, however at the age of 6 months they start to develop a spontaneous autoimmune-like disorder leading to premature death. The study showed additional immune phenotypes of miR-146a mutant mice, including loss of immunological tolerance and macrophage hyperresponsiveness to bacterial lipopolysaccharides. The study established that this microRNA is involved in determining immune cell fate. Moreover, aging miR-146a knockout animals develop frank tumors in the secondary lymphoid organs, suggesting that miR-146a can function as a tumor suppressor in the context of the immune system. Taken together, the findings suggest that miR-146a plays a key role as a molecular brake of inflammatory response and oncogenic transformation of the immune cells.

HCV

In a poster titled "Identification of miR-122 conserved targets in liver affecting cholesterol regulation" Regulus scientists presented expression profiling data from livers of anti-miR-122-treated cynomolgus monkeys, mice, and rats. The company is developing an anti-microRNA targeting miR-122 as a novel treatment for HCV infection. Regulus and other groups have shown that miR-122 inhibition in monkeys results in a potent reduction of plasma cholesterol levels. However, the molecular mechanisms contributing to this phenotype are not known. Analysis of the messenger RNA expression profiling data revealed target regulation in all species with a common set of up-regulated, seed-matched messenger RNA targets in pathways related to cellular transport. This research suggests miR-122 in hepatocytes might indirectly activate cholesterol efflux by suppressing targets that prevent transport.

About microRNAs

The discovery of microRNA in humans is one of the most exciting scientific breakthroughs in the last decade. microRNAs are small RNA molecules, typically 20 to 25 nucleotides in length, that do not encode proteins but instead regulate gene expression. Nearly 700 microRNAs have been identified in the human genome, and more than one-third of all human genes are believed to be regulated by microRNAs. As a single microRNA can regulate entire networks of genes, these new molecules are considered the master regulators of the genome. microRNAs have been shown to play an integral role in numerous biological processes including the immune response, cell-cycle control, metabolism, viral replication, stem cell differentiation and human development. Many microRNAs are conserved across multiple species indicating the evolutionary importance of these molecules as modulators of critical biological pathways. Indeed, microRNA expression or function has been shown to be significantly altered in many disease states, including cancer, heart failure and viral infections. Targeting microRNAs opens the possibility of a novel class of therapeutics and a unique approach to treating disease by modulating entire biological pathways.

About Regulus Therapeutics Inc.

Regulus Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company leading the discovery and development of innovative new medicines based on microRNAs. Regulus is targeting microRNAs as a new class of therapeutics by working with a broad network of academic collaborators and leveraging oligonucleotide drug discovery and development expertise from its founding companies Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq:ALNY) and Isis Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq:ISIS). Regulus is advancing microRNA therapeutics towards the clinic in several areas including hepatitis C infection, cardiovascular disease, fibrosis, oncology, immuno-inflammatory diseases, and metabolic diseases. Regulus' intellectual property estate contains both the fundamental and core patents in the field as well as over 600 patents and more than 300 pending patent applications pertaining primarily to chemical modifications of oligonucleotides targeting microRNAs for therapeutic applications. In 2008, Regulus entered into a major alliance with GlaxoSmithKline to discover and develop microRNA therapeutics for immuno-inflammatory diseases. For more information, visit www.regulusrx.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes forward-looking statements regarding the future therapeutic and commercial potential of Regulus', Alnylam's, and Isis' business plans, technologies and intellectual property related to microRNA therapeutics being discovered and developed by Regulus. Any statement describing Regulus', Alnylam's, and Isis' goals, expectations, financial or other projections, intentions or beliefs is a forward-looking statement and should be considered an at-risk statement, including those statements that are described as such parties' goals. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, particularly those inherent in the process of discovering, developing and commercializing drugs that are safe and effective for use as human therapeutics, and in the endeavor of building a business around such products. Such parties' forward-looking statements also involve assumptions that, if they never materialize or prove correct, could cause their results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Although these forward-looking statements reflect the good faith judgment of the management of each such party, these statements are based only on facts and factors currently known by Regulus', Alnylam's, and Isis' management as the case may be. As a result, you are cautioned not to rely on these forward-looking statements. These and other risks concerning Regulus', Alnylam's, and Isis' programs are described in additional detail in Alnylam's and Isis' annual reports on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2008, and their most recent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q which are on file with the SEC. Copies of these and other documents are available from Alnylam or Isis.

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