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Stress disrupts human thinking, but the brain can bounce back

A new neuroimaging study on stressed-out students suggests that male humans, like male rats, don’t do their most agile thinking under stress. The findings, published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that 20 male M.D. candidates in the middle of preparing for...

New method prevents microRNAs from escaping cells

MicroRNAs — one of the tiniest entities in the human genome — are great escape artists. Despite scientists’ best efforts to detect and capture them in different tissues, they often manage to make a getaway, sneaking through the tissues’ tiny holes before anyone can detect them. But now, by a...

Discovery could help scientists stop the 'death cascade' of neurons after a stroke

Distressed swimmers often panic, sapping the strength they need to keep their heads above water until help arrives. When desperate for oxygen, neurons behave in a similar way. They freak out, stupidly discharging energy until they drown in a sea of their own extruded salts. Every year, millions o...

Scientists detect an ancient odor-detecting mechanism in insects

In 1913 Theodore Roosevelt added cartographer to his resume when he and his crew ventured up an unspeakably dangerous and uncharted tributary named the River of Doubt. Now, on a charting expedition of their own, Rockefeller University scientists have completed a journey that has also defied expec...

Researchers develop a device that mimics one of nature's key transport machines

To help protect its genes, a cell is highly selective about what it allows to move in and out of its nucleus. Yet that choosiness is regulated by just a thin barrier, perforated with tiny transport machines called nuclear pore complexes: protein-coated holes surrounded by flimsy, unfolded protein...

Structural study backs new model for the nuclear pore complex

In higher organisms, the genetic material is confined and protected in the cell nucleus. In order for a healthy cell to function, the DNA must send manufacturing orders through the double membrane of the nucleus and into the cell’s cytoplasm, where the protein production factories are and where m...

Rockefeller microbiologist tests safety of spiked eggnog

With one in every 20,000 eggs contaminated with Salmonella bacteria, drinking homemade eggnog can be something of a gamble. But an experiment designed to test whether the alcohol in spiked eggnog can kill the deadly bugs suggests that, in general, few bacteria survive in a mixture containing both...

Single letter in the human genome points to risk for high cholesterol

Write out every letter in the human genome, one A, C, T or G per millimeter, and the text would be 1,800 miles long, roughly the distance from New York to Colorado. Now, in the search for genes that affect how humans synthesize, process and break down cholesterol, a consortium of researchers led ...

Defensive protein killed ancient primate retroviruses, research suggests

Retroviruses are the worst sort of guest. Over eons, these molecular parasites have insinuated themselves into their hosts’ DNA and caused a ruckus. The poor hosts can’t even be rid of the intruders by killing them, because they stubbornly remain after death. As much as eight percent of the huma...

An enzyme that mutates antibodies also targets a cancer-causing oncogene

The human immune system is in a perpetual state of self-experimentation. It expertly mutates and shuffles the DNA of its own cells to evolve new defenses against the vast array of microbes that try to invade our bodies. But when the genetic experiment goes awry, the result can be a deadly cancer....