Tag Archives: living

Capturing a hard-wired variability: What makes some identical twins noticeably different?

"We have captured a fundamental randomness at the level of gene expression that has never before been described — one that persists throughout development and into adulthood," says Ludwig scientist Rickard Sandberg at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. The discovery was made possible by a powerful new technique developed by Sandberg’s lab for analyzing the global expression of genes in single cells. With the exception of a subset of genes found on sex chromosomes, every mammal inherits one copy of every gene from each of its parents. Each of those copies is known as an allele, and alleles often differ measurably from their genomic siblings — a fact that accounts for a good deal of human and animal diversity…

New role for milk: Delivering polyphenols with anti-cancer activity

"These results support a new role for milk as an ideal platform for delivery of bioactive compounds and opens the door to a new generation of dairy products providing additional benefits to human health," say authors Sanaz Haratifar and Milena Corredig, of the Department of Food Science and Department of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences of the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. The majority of extractable polyphenols in tea are flavan-3-ols, commonly referred to as catechins. EGCG is the major catechin found in tea. Tea polyphenols have been shown to inhibit tumor formation, reduce cancer cell proliferation, increase normal cell death (apoptosis), and/or suppress the formation of new blood vessels feeding tumors (angiogenesis)…