Monday, May 6, 2013

CA-NEWS Summary

Israel strikes Syria again, rocking Damascus

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Israel carried out its second air strike in days on Syria early on Sunday, a Western intelligence source said, in an attack that shook Damascus with a series of powerful blasts and drove columns of fire into the night sky. Israel declined comment but Syria accused the Jewish state of striking a military facility just north of the capital - one which its jets had first targeted three months ago. Iran, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and an arch-enemy for Israel, urged states in the region to resist the Israeli attack.

Bomb hits convoy carrying Qataris in Somalia, eight dead

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A suicide bomber hit a convoy of cars carrying Qatari officials through the center of Somalia's capital Mogadishu on Sunday, killing eight Somalis, officials said. The visiting delegation of Qataris, who were travelling in the Somali interior minister's bullet-proof vehicle, were "safe", a security officer told Reuters, without going into further detail. The minister was not in the car at the time.

North Korea says no plan to use American as bargaining chip

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said on Sunday it had no intention of using an American it sentenced to hard labor for 15 years as a bargaining chip in talks with the United States. North Korea sentenced Kenneth Bae, a Korean American who traveled to visit North Korea last November, on Thursday for what is said were crimes against the state.

Sharif says Pakistan should reconsider support for U.S. war on terror

LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - Nawaz Sharif, seen as the front-runner in Pakistan's election race, said the country should reconsider its support for the U.S. war on Islamist militancy and suggested that he was in favor of negotiations with the Taliban. Pakistan backed American efforts to stamp out global militancy after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and was rewarded with billions of dollars in U.S. aid.

Seven U.S. troops killed in Afghan bomb, insider attack

KABUL (Reuters) - Seven U.S. soldiers were killed in two separate attacks in Afghanistan on Saturday, NATO and Western officials in Kabul said, capping off one of the bloodiest weeks for international forces this year. The attacks underscored the dangers faced by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), even as they hand over much of the fighting to Afghans ahead of a planned withdrawal next year.

Bangladesh urges no harsh EU measures over factory deaths

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh urged the European Union on Saturday not to take tough measures against its economically crucial textile industry in response to the collapse of a garment factory that killed 550 people. Bodies were still being pulled from the ruins on Saturday as tearful families stood by waiting for news of victims of the country's worst ever industrial accident.

Insight: Egypt opposition can't harvest Brotherhood unpopularity

CAIRO (Reuters) - It's harvest time in Egypt but the secular opposition is reaping scant benefit from the Muslim Brotherhood's difficulties in government, two years after an Arab Spring uprising swept away President Hosni Mubarak. Many Egyptians are looking to the army, or to more radical Salafi Muslim groups, rather than to liberal or leftist parties as Islamist President Mohamed Mursi and his cabinet struggle to revive a sick economy, restore security and build institutions.

First oil from South Sudan's Upper Nile to reach Sudan May 10

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - South Sudan will ship its first oil from its largest fields in Upper Nile state to export facilities in Sudan on May 10, Sudan's oil ministry told state news agency SUNA on Saturday. In March, the African neighbors agreed to resume cross-border oil flows.

Junior Italy minister removed after comment on gays

ROME (Reuters) - A junior Italian equal opportunities minister was removed from her post on Saturday less than 24 hours after being sworn in to the new coalition government, after she said gays invited discrimination by "ghettoizing" themselves. The abrupt departure of Michaela Biancofiore to another ministry was a fresh reminder of just how delicate Prime Minister Enrico Letta's fledgling left-right coalition is.

Hungarian far-right decries 'Israeli plot' before Jewish meeting

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Leaders of a far-right Hungarian party accused Israelis of plotting to buy up the country as several hundred nationalists protested on Saturday on the eve of a meeting of the World Jewish Congress in Budapest. Senior figures from the opposition Jobbik party, the third biggest with 43 seats in the 386-member parliament, harangued the crowd with charges that Israeli President Shimon Peres had praised Jews for buying property in Hungary.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ca-news-summary-061347986.html

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Saturday, May 4, 2013

Physics teacher adopts Google Glass, gives students a glance at CERN (video)

Physics teacher adopts Google Glass, gives students a firsthand look at CERN video

When Google asked what we'd do if we had Glass, it was no doubt hoping we'd produce some world-changing ideas. We now know at least a few exist, courtesy of physics teacher Andrew Vanden Heuvel. He's long been hoping to use the wearable tech for remote teaching and one-on-one sessions, and the Glass Explorer program has given him the chance to do just that. His first stop? None other than CERN. Courtesy of a trip for Google's new Explorer Story video series, Vanden Heuvel is the first person to teach a science course while inside the Large Hadron Collider tunnel, streaming his perspective to students thousands of miles away. While we don't know if other Explorer Stories will be quite as inspiring, we'll admit to being slightly jealous -- where was Glass when we were kids?

[Thanks, Peter]

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/03/physics-teacher-adopts-google-glass/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Friday, May 3, 2013

Howard Kurtz fired? Why the columnist is leaving The Daily Beast.

Was Howard Kurtz fired? The Daily Beast retracted his factually incorrect blog post about Jason Collins today, and 'both sides agreed it was best to part company,' he tweeted.

By Ryan Nakashima,?Associated Press / May 2, 2013

Howard Kurtz, seen here at a movie premier in April 2012, has left The Daily Beast. Earlier today, the website retracted one of his blog posts about the coming out of NBA player Jason Collins. Both Kurtz and Daily Beast editor-in-chief Tina Brown confirmed his departure over Twitter, though Kurtz did not acknowledge any link between the retraction and his departure.

Evan Agostini / AP / file

Enlarge

Columnist Howard Kurtz left The Daily Beast on Thursday, the same day the website retracted one of his blog posts in which he mistakenly accused NBA player Jason Collins of hiding a previous engagement to a woman before declaring this week that he is gay.

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A person close to the matter said Kurtz was fired because this was the latest in a series of high-profile errors, which detracted from the site's efforts to bolster the credibility of its news coverage. The gaffe also comes as The Daily Beast tries to succeed only online after dropping its print magazine, Newsweek, in December.

The person was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

A spokeswoman for CNN, where Kurtz hosts the TV show "Reliable Sources," said the network is reviewing the matter. Kurtz's CNN show is about "how journalists do their jobs and how the media affect the stories they cover," according to the website. Kurtz is a former media columnist with The Washington Post and was The Daily Beast's Washington bureau chief.

CNN is also looking into Kurtz's relationship with the website Daily Download, which lists him as being on its board of advisers. A Huffington Post story on Wednesday noted that Kurtz promoted the site with more than 120 links in April, compared with around 20 for The Daily Beast and fewer for his CNN show.

In the retracted Daily Beast post, titled "Jason Collins' Other Secret," Kurtz says Collins "didn't come clean" about the fact that he was engaged to be married to a woman before declaring he was gay.

But Collins does just that in the eighth paragraph of the Sports Illustrated piece that came out Monday.

"When I was younger I dated women. I even got engaged. I thought I had to live a certain way. I thought I needed to marry a woman and raise kids with her. I kept telling myself the sky was red, but I always knew it was blue," Collins wrote.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/1fvaBb3KGPA/Howard-Kurtz-fired-Why-the-columnist-is-leaving-The-Daily-Beast

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Mophie Juice Pack for the HTC One

Mophie Juice Pack for HTC One.

Mophie's usual quality shines through with this HTC One battery case, but you've got to be prepared for a major increase in size

Let's get this out of the way: The Mophie Juice Pack takes the svelte HTC One and bulks it up. A lot. It's a big case full of battery -- 2,500 mAh, to be precise -- that takes an already lanky phone, makes it even taller and fills it out like a blogger at a buffet. You need to know this before hefting this the Juice Pack.

But those of use who have used the Juice Packs before know that this is the trade-off for having a combination case and battery, an amalgamation that was made popular by the iPhone and has become that much more important as more phone manufacturers seal the batteries inside.

And now we've got a Mophie Juice Pack for the HTC One. Our thoughts, after the break.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/fDaWMblUNf8/story01.htm

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Thursday, May 2, 2013

MiiPC offers backers double the memory for $15, throws in a free mic

MiiPC offers backers double the memory for $15, throws in a free mic

With a week left in an already successful Kickstarter campaign (approaching three times its initial $50,000 goal), the makers of the MiiPC are giving backers the chance to increase their system's memory. Add $15 before the close of the project and you'll be able to double things up, from 1GB to 2GB of RAM and 4GB to 8GB of storage -- the move comes in response to pledger feedback, according to the company. And speaking of listening, the makers of the parental-friendly Android PC are also tossing in a free built-in mic for those who pre-ordered, just for good measure.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/01/miipc-memory/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Judge axes suit over dry lakebed near L.A.

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by Los Angeles against air quality regulators who are requiring the city to do more to control dust on a lake that was siphoned dry a century ago to provide water for the booming metropolis.

U.S. District Judge Anthony W. Ishii granted a motion Wednesday to dismiss the lawsuit in the latest chapter in a decades-old spat over water rights in the arid region 200 miles north of Los Angeles. The lawsuit was filed last year in U.S. District Court in Fresno.

The conflict began in 1913, when Los Angeles began diverting water from Owens Lake, which then went dry in 1926. The lakebed has since been plagued with massive dust storms and poor air quality despite efforts by the city to keep dust down.

The scandal created by the diversion project was fodder for the 1974 film "Chinatown," and an aqueduct carrying away the water was dynamited repeatedly by angry residents after increased pumping in the 1920s combined with a drought ruined many farms.

Since a 1998 agreement, Los Angeles has spent more than $1 billion to tamp down the dust as part of the nation's largest dust mitigation project, mainly by putting water back into more than 40 square miles of the lakebed.

The utility is currently working to control dust on another 3-square-mile parcel, said Ted Schade, air pollution control officer for the Great Basin Air Pollution Control District.

The city alleged in its lawsuit that 2011 orders from the pollution control district to further increase the mitigation were excessive and questioned whether Los Angeles was even responsible for problems in that area of the lake.

Joe Ramallo, spokesman for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said in an email Thursday that the judge's ruling was largely procedural and didn't address the core issue.

"We remain committed to exploring all available means for stopping the enormous waste of California's scarce water supply and protecting consumers from the wasteful spending of Owens Valley regulators," he said.

The city has a lawsuit still pending in state court and has proposed a project that would reduce water use at Owens Lake by 50 percent by using vegetation, ground water, gravel and other means to reduce dust.

The federal lawsuit, which also named the California Air Resources Board, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, had asked the court for relief from the "systematic and unlawful issuance to the city of dust control orders and fee assessments."

The department said last year when it filed the action that additional dust control would cost up to $400 million when each ratepayer already provides $90 a year to improve air quality around Owens Lake. The city uses 30 billion gallons annually ? enough to fill the Rose Bowl each day to overflowing for one year ? to keep dust down, the city said.

The latest legal ruling could come at a particularly bad time for the city.

Survey results released Thursday showed snow pack in California was at 17 percent of normal, an ominous situation for a state that depends on a steady stream of snowmelt to replenish reservoirs throughout the summer.

Owens Lake air quality regulators agreed this summer will be particularly dry and are working with the city to use less water on dust, said Schade, whose pollution district covers Inyo, Mono and Alpine counties in a vast region northeast of Los Angeles.

One solution, in addition to placing vegetation and gravel, includes spot-treating areas that are producing the most dust, he said.

"We realize that this is a dry year," Schade said. "We acknowledge the fact that they are putting water on the lakebed, and we recognize the value of that water."

_____

Follow Gillian Flaccus on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/gflaccus

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/apnewsbreak-judge-axes-federal-suit-over-lake-234259095.html

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Italy's Letta tells Merkel Europe needs more growth

By Steve Scherer and Stephen Brown

ROME/BERLIN (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta, fresh from winning a confidence vote in parliament, told Germany on Tuesday his government would meet its budget commitments but expected Europe to drop its austerity mantra and do more to lift growth.

Speaking in Berlin on his first foreign visit since taking office on Sunday, Letta warned that Italy's February election, which saw a surge of support for parties attacking the European Union, showed that a change of course was needed.

"The message which has arrived from the Italian electorate should not be underestimated," he said, standing next to German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a news conference.

Merkel, seen by many in southern countries like Italy, Spain and Greece as the champion of Europe's increasingly unpopular belt-tightening approach, struck a conciliatory tone, saying "budget consolidation and growth need not be contradictory".

"The goal is not deficit or growth numbers but getting people back to work," she said.

The 46-year-old Letta, whose coalition is built on an uneasy alliance of his center-left Democratic Party and the center-right People of Freedom party of Silvio Berlusconi, has joined a growing chorus in Europe calling for an end to austerity.

"We have done and will continue to do everything needed to keep our finances in order but we believe Europe must pursue policies for growth," he said, adding that productive investment should be promoted as strongly as fiscal consolidation.

Letta took the helm of the euro zone's third biggest economy in the middle of a severe crisis, with unemployment at 20-year highs and a recession, already matching the longest since World War Two, seen dragging on all year.

He has already come under pressure from coalition partners to negotiate budget leeway for Rome with its EU partners. But he faces opposition in Germany, which has its own elections in September and where voters are strongly in favor of making heavily indebted states like Italy cut spending.

Even before the vote of confidence in the Senate on Tuesday, Berlusconi threatened to pull his People of Freedom out of the coalition if Letta does not abolish an unpopular housing tax.

HOUSING TAX

Berlusconi, who is not in cabinet but is playing a decisive role behind the scenes, added that the government must re-negotiate Italy's EU deficit commitments, echoing similar comments made earlier by two of Letta's own ministers.

Under strong pressure from Berlusconi, Letta has already agreed to halt the housing tax levy due in June and is looking at stopping a planned increase in sales tax, due to come into force in July.

But he has not said how he will pay for the 4 billion euro revenue shortfall.

Asked whether he had discussed the tax changes with Merkel, Letta said no country had to justify its internal fiscal policies so long as it maintained its overall budget targets.

"The ways in which we will find the resources are up to us, I don't have to explain it to anyone," he said.

Italy's 2013 deficit target now stands at 2.9 percent of gross domestic product, a notch below the EU ceiling of three percent, but its public debt is set to reach a towering 130 percent of gross domestic product this year, second only to Greece in the euro zone.

On Wednesday, Letta travels to Paris where he is likely to find a more sympathetic hearing from French President Francois Hollande, who is also pushing for a switch of emphasis towards growth rather than austerity.

He will then go to Brussels, where he plans talks with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

Unemployment figures on Tuesday underlined the depth of the economic crisis in Italy with an overall jobless rate of 11.5 percent in March and youth unemployment running at 38.4 percent.

With social tensions rising as a result of the crisis, both the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement led by comic Beppe Grillo and Berlusconi's PDL campaigned strongly against the EU in the recent election, blaming it for the austerity policies followed by former prime minister Mario Monti.

The country's biggest labor unions on Tuesday said they would hold a joint protest on June 22 to push for more job creation policies.

(With additional reporting by Giuseppe Fonte and Adrian Croft in Brussels; writing by Steve Scherer and James Mackenzie; editing by Mike Collett-White)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/italy-pm-letta-wins-final-confidence-vote-122020904.html

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Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Florida Teen Charged with Weapon-Related Felonies Due to Science Project Mishap

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/05/florida-teen-charged-with-weapon-related-felonies-due-to-science/

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Membrane remodeling: Where yoga meets cell biology

Membrane remodeling: Where yoga meets cell biology [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 30-Apr-2013
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Contact: Alisa Z Machalek
alisa.machalek@nih.gov
NIH/National Institute of General Medical Sciences

NIH-funded study reveals protein, fatty molecules and cellular energy work together during endocytosis

Cells ingest proteins and engulf bacteria by a gymnastic, shape-shifting process called endocytosis. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health revealed how a key protein, dynamin, drives the action.

Endocytosis lets cells absorb nutrients, import growth factors, prevent infections and accomplish many other vital tasks. Yet, despite decades of research, scientists don't fully understand this membrane remodeling process. New research reveals, on the real-life scale of nanometers, how individual molecules work together during a single act of endocytosis.

"We've discovered new details about a basic process used in all sorts of ways by every cell in the body," said co-author Joshua Zimmerberg, M.D., Ph.D., head of the Program in Physical Biology at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), where the research was conducted. "It's the culmination of a 30-year journey."

The research was led by Vadim Frolov, Ph.D., a former postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Zimmerberg's lab. It appears in a Science paper co-authored by an international team of researchers in the United States, Spain, Russia and India.

In addition to funding Dr. Zimmerberg, NIH also supported the work through a grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) to co-author Sandra Schmid, Ph.D. at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Dr. Schmid is an expert on dynamin.

Scientists have known for years that dynamin plays the major role in endocytosis. After other molecules known as coat proteins pinch the cell's membrane to form an inward-puckering sac, dynamin wraps, python-like, around the neck of the sac and squeezes it tightly. A jolt of energy from a molecule called GTP severs the neck, releasing a free-floating bubble, called a vesicle, inside the cell, and sealing the cell's outer membrane shut. All the while, neither the cell nor the vesicle leak any of their contents.

Drs. Zimmerberg, Schmid and colleagues discovered how the cell overcomes a seemingly insurmountable energy barrier to accomplish this feat. It's not a matter of brute force, as previously suspected, but something much more zen-likemolecular cooperation.

Neck severing starts when dynamin dips slightly into the pliable cell membrane. Lipids (oily molecules) in the membrane move aside, shifting their tails to accommodate the protein. This molecular crowding stresses the membrane, further constricting the neck of the developing vesicle.

Then GTP finishes the job. But not, as you might expect, with a fatal tug of the dynamin noose. Rather the opposite: Like a yoga instructor, GTP encourages the membrane to relax, despite its extreme stress. In the middle of this state of relaxation, the vesicle suddenly pinches off.

In trying to understand this counterintuitive move, the researchers speculate that GTP melts the inside of dynamin a bit, turning the protein into a flexible scaffold that stabilizes the membrane while the lipids rearrange themselves.

"We see no other way to lower the energy barrier to remodeling without having any leaks," states Dr. Frolov, who formulated the idea.

The researchers also found that, without access to GTP, dynamin will keep growing, twisting three or four times around the neck of the sac. When GTP is present (as is the case in living organisms), it only lets dynamin coil once or twice before it snaps off the vesicle.

All of this information helps scientists better understand a process critical to life.

Genetic defects in endocytosisand the reverse process, exocytosisare linked to a host of human diseases, including muscular dystrophy, Alzheimer's disease, leukemia and many others. In addition, some parasites and other pathogens can hijack endocytosis, commandeering the process to enter and infect human cells.

Dr. Zimmerberg is bringing his basic research findings to the clinic. He is studying changes in muscle cell membranes in people who have an adult-onset form of muscular dystrophy. In the disease, the membrane around muscle cells weakens and tears. Eventually, cells with damaged membranes die, leaking a number of enzymes into the bloodstream. Dr. Zimmerberg hopes to identify changes in blood chemistry that shed light on the disease process and point to possible new treatments. The study soon will begin recruiting patients as volunteers.

###

This research was supported in part by the intramural program of the NICHD and by NIGMS grant GM42455.

About the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD):

The NICHD sponsors research on development, before and after birth; maternal, child, and family health; reproductive biology and population issues; and medical rehabilitation. For more information, visit the Institute's website at http://www.nichd.nih.gov/.

About the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS):

NIGMS supports basic research to increase our understanding of life processes and lay the foundation for advances in disease diagnosis, treatment and prevention. For more information on the institute's research and training programs, see http://www.nigms.nih.gov.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):

NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.


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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Membrane remodeling: Where yoga meets cell biology [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 30-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Alisa Z Machalek
alisa.machalek@nih.gov
NIH/National Institute of General Medical Sciences

NIH-funded study reveals protein, fatty molecules and cellular energy work together during endocytosis

Cells ingest proteins and engulf bacteria by a gymnastic, shape-shifting process called endocytosis. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health revealed how a key protein, dynamin, drives the action.

Endocytosis lets cells absorb nutrients, import growth factors, prevent infections and accomplish many other vital tasks. Yet, despite decades of research, scientists don't fully understand this membrane remodeling process. New research reveals, on the real-life scale of nanometers, how individual molecules work together during a single act of endocytosis.

"We've discovered new details about a basic process used in all sorts of ways by every cell in the body," said co-author Joshua Zimmerberg, M.D., Ph.D., head of the Program in Physical Biology at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), where the research was conducted. "It's the culmination of a 30-year journey."

The research was led by Vadim Frolov, Ph.D., a former postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Zimmerberg's lab. It appears in a Science paper co-authored by an international team of researchers in the United States, Spain, Russia and India.

In addition to funding Dr. Zimmerberg, NIH also supported the work through a grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) to co-author Sandra Schmid, Ph.D. at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Dr. Schmid is an expert on dynamin.

Scientists have known for years that dynamin plays the major role in endocytosis. After other molecules known as coat proteins pinch the cell's membrane to form an inward-puckering sac, dynamin wraps, python-like, around the neck of the sac and squeezes it tightly. A jolt of energy from a molecule called GTP severs the neck, releasing a free-floating bubble, called a vesicle, inside the cell, and sealing the cell's outer membrane shut. All the while, neither the cell nor the vesicle leak any of their contents.

Drs. Zimmerberg, Schmid and colleagues discovered how the cell overcomes a seemingly insurmountable energy barrier to accomplish this feat. It's not a matter of brute force, as previously suspected, but something much more zen-likemolecular cooperation.

Neck severing starts when dynamin dips slightly into the pliable cell membrane. Lipids (oily molecules) in the membrane move aside, shifting their tails to accommodate the protein. This molecular crowding stresses the membrane, further constricting the neck of the developing vesicle.

Then GTP finishes the job. But not, as you might expect, with a fatal tug of the dynamin noose. Rather the opposite: Like a yoga instructor, GTP encourages the membrane to relax, despite its extreme stress. In the middle of this state of relaxation, the vesicle suddenly pinches off.

In trying to understand this counterintuitive move, the researchers speculate that GTP melts the inside of dynamin a bit, turning the protein into a flexible scaffold that stabilizes the membrane while the lipids rearrange themselves.

"We see no other way to lower the energy barrier to remodeling without having any leaks," states Dr. Frolov, who formulated the idea.

The researchers also found that, without access to GTP, dynamin will keep growing, twisting three or four times around the neck of the sac. When GTP is present (as is the case in living organisms), it only lets dynamin coil once or twice before it snaps off the vesicle.

All of this information helps scientists better understand a process critical to life.

Genetic defects in endocytosisand the reverse process, exocytosisare linked to a host of human diseases, including muscular dystrophy, Alzheimer's disease, leukemia and many others. In addition, some parasites and other pathogens can hijack endocytosis, commandeering the process to enter and infect human cells.

Dr. Zimmerberg is bringing his basic research findings to the clinic. He is studying changes in muscle cell membranes in people who have an adult-onset form of muscular dystrophy. In the disease, the membrane around muscle cells weakens and tears. Eventually, cells with damaged membranes die, leaking a number of enzymes into the bloodstream. Dr. Zimmerberg hopes to identify changes in blood chemistry that shed light on the disease process and point to possible new treatments. The study soon will begin recruiting patients as volunteers.

###

This research was supported in part by the intramural program of the NICHD and by NIGMS grant GM42455.

About the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD):

The NICHD sponsors research on development, before and after birth; maternal, child, and family health; reproductive biology and population issues; and medical rehabilitation. For more information, visit the Institute's website at http://www.nichd.nih.gov/.

About the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS):

NIGMS supports basic research to increase our understanding of life processes and lay the foundation for advances in disease diagnosis, treatment and prevention. For more information on the institute's research and training programs, see http://www.nigms.nih.gov.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):

NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.


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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/niog-mrw042913.php

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