In 90 percent of humans, homocysteine is converted into a harmless amino acid. But for 10 percent of the population, the compound accumulates in high concentrations in the body and causes heart disease and birth defects.
Folic acid helps the body convert the homocysteine through the complicated biochemical chain reaction. The researchers stumbled on this discovery while doing general research on an enzyme called methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase.
Researchers Rowena Matthews and Martha Ludwig said they credit the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for providing the funds to pursue this basic untargeted research.
Laurent will present his research on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. on April 14. The work was completed through the University's Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program.
Laurent's research shows that with sustained temperature changes the winter songbirds change residential areas.
Laurent studied 14 different songbird species including the black-capped chickadee, the horned lark, the white-breasted nuthatch and the dark-eyed junco in North and South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas.
The researchers, led by psychology Prof. Pawan Sinha, hope to develop a computer program capable of sorting and understanding facial expressions.
"If we can take a face and reduce it to its essence - then we would understand what it takes for recognition," Sinha said. "This is what caricaturists have been doing for centuries."
Human beings are able to discern between a variety of facial expressions. According to Sinha, humans can perform the "impressive feat" of recognizing between 5,000 and 10,000 different faces.
Sinha's project began two months ago when researchers commissioned artists from across the country to draw caricatures of faces from photographs.
Sinha will next compile a caricature database and interview caricaturists on the methods they use in their drawings. Then, researchers will use computers to analyze the different caricatures.
In studies published in the March 2 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Stanford University researchers reported that the strategies used by bacteria to destroy other microorganisms can be potentially useful in the development of more potent drugs, according to a report in The Stanford Daily.
The researchers emphasized the potential for the treatment of immunosuppression, inflammation and hypertension.
- Compiled by Daily Staff Reporter Gerard Cohen-Vrignaud.
04-01-99
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