Spider glue may spin biobased adhesives
LARAMIE, Wyo., Oct. 26 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists have analyzed the sticky substance in spider webs and say their findings might lead to development of a new generation of bio-based adhesives.
The University of Wyoming researchers say their findings are an advance toward bio-based "green" adhesives and glues that could replace existing petroleum-based products for a range of uses.
Omer Choresh and colleagues note much research has been done on spider web silk, but scientists know comparatively little about the glue that coats the silk threads and is among the world's strongest biological glues. Past studies revealed that spiders make web glue from glycoproteins, or proteins with bits of sugar attached.
The new study identified two new glycoproteins in the glue and showed that domains of those proteins were produced from opposite strands of the same DNA.
"Once the cloned genes are over expressed in systems such as insect or bacterial cell cultures, large-scale production of the glycoprotein can be used to develop a new bio-based glue for a variety of purposes," the researchers said.
A report on the study appears in the journal Biomacromolecules.
Women veterans less likely to report pain
NEW HAVEN, Conn., Oct. 26 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say women veterans are less likely than their male counterparts to report pain.
The study, published in Pain Medicine, finds veterans less likely to report any pain if female -- 38.1 percent vs. 44 percent in males. Veterans with any pain, the researchers say, were more likely to report moderate-severe pain if female -- 68 percent vs. 62.6 percent in males -- and less likely to report having persistent pain if female -- 18 percent vs. 21.2 percent in males.
"We were surprised by the lower pain prevalence in women Veterans which is contrary to studies conducted in civilian populations," study leader Dr. Sally Haskell of the Yale School of Medicine says in a statement.
The study sample was made up of 153,212 U.S. military personnel listed on the Veterans Administration roster discharged from Oct. 1, 2001 to Nov. 30, 2007, who had had one year of observation after their last deployment. Of these, 18,481 were female.
New butterfly ear structure discovered
BRISTOL, England, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- U.K. and Canadian scientists say they've found a structure on a tropical butterfly's wing that allows it to distinguish between high and low pitch sounds.
The team of researchers from Britain's University of Bristol, Carleton University in Canada and Scotland's University of Strathclyde believes the structure in Blue Morpho (Morpho peleides) butterflies might be associated with the detection of predators, in particular birds.
The Blue Morpho, native to Central and South America, famous for their wing coloration, now turn out to have ears on their wings.
The scientists said the ear is located at the base of the wing and looks like a sheet of stretched rubber. The oval-shaped tympanal membrane, with an unusual dome in the middle, is attached directly to sensory organs and is responsible for converting sound waves into signals that can be picked up by nerve cells.
Using a tiny laser beam, lead researcher Katie Lucas scanned the surface of the membrane while it was in action, and found lower pitch sounds cause vibrations only in a part of the outer membrane, while higher pitch sounds caused the entire membrane to vibrate.
The study appears in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
Genetic mutation ups schizophrenia risk
COLD SPRING HARBOR, N.Y., Oct. 26 (UPI) -- A U.S.-led team of geneticists says it has identified a mutation on human chromosome 16 that substantially increases the risk of developing schizophrenia.
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory geneticist Jonathan Sebat, who led the study, said the mutation is a copy number variant -- an area of the genome where the number of copies of genes differs between individuals. The newly discovered copy number variant is located in a region referred to by scientists as 16p11.2. By studying the genomes of 4,551 patients and 6,391 healthy individuals, Sebat's team determined having one extra copy of that region is associated with schizophrenia.
"In the general population this duplication is quite rare, occurring in roughly one in 5,000 persons," Sebat said. "But for people that carry the extra copy, the risk of developing schizophrenia is increased by more than eight-fold."
Studies by other groups have shown losing one copy of 16p11.2 confers high risk of autism and other developmental disorders in children. Taken together, the researchers said the studies suggest some genes are shared between schizophrenia and autism.
The findings are detailed in the early online edition of the journal Nature Genetics and will appear in the journal's November print issue.
