A newly discovered mechanism by which an infectious fungus perceives light also plays an important role in its virulence, according to Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators at Duke University Medical Center. The findings suggest that changes in light following fungal invasion of the human body may be an important and previously overlooked cue that sparks infection, the researchers said.

Some organs in the human body deal with injury better than others. A flesh wound or muscle tear might hurt, but, assuming you are otherwise healthy, both will heal. The prognosis for a heart attack, on the other hand, is not so clear-cut.

Climate change has already had dramatic effects on individual species, with disruptions in range, reproductive success, and seasonal phenomena like migration. But, in a new study from the open-access online journal PLoS Biology (www.plosbiology.org), Christopher Wilmers and Wayne Getz show that the impact of climate change on many different species in Yellowstone Park can be buffered by a top predator - the reintroduced gray wolf (Canis lupus).

A research team using a novel genetic cloning and sequencing technique has identified a surprisingly high number of airborne pathogens in a Midwest therapy pool, pointing to the need for closer scrutiny of public hot pools, says a new study.

A team of scientists led by Dr. Kuniya Abe from the RIKEN BioResource Center in Japan has performed one of the most comprehensive genome-wide experimental analyses of sense-antisense transcripts to date. Their findings are published in the April issue of the journal Genome Research.

Research published in the March issue of the journal Cancer Cell describes a small molecule inhibitor of polo-like kinase1 (Plk1) that could lead to a new avenue for targeted cancer therapy. The compound, ON01910, is a potent inhibitor of human tumors in a mouse model system and has low toxicity. The results of this study have led to clinical evaluation of this compound in phase I clinical trials.

Scientists have discovered that a molecule called DJ-1 is likely to be involved in the generation of human tumors through negative regulation of the well-known tumor suppressor, PTEN. The research, published in the March issue of Cancer Cell, has important implications for determining the prognosis of some human cancers, and may prove to be a suitable target for cancer therapy.

Deliberately spreading disease among the enemy has been occasionally practiced over hundreds of years. But modern bioterrorism is more chilling than ever because of rapidly expanding knowledge about infectious diseases and biotoxins and their potential to wreak havoc in complex, interdependent societies. The nation is in the process of developing a strong microbial forensic program to attribute and prosecute such attacks, and perhaps deter them.

Johns Hopkins chemists have discovered a new way to sabotage DNA's ability to reproduce, a finding that could eventually lead to the development of new anti-cancer drugs and therapies.

The highest levels of silver contamination ever observed in the open ocean turned up in samples collected during a survey of the North Pacific in 2002. Researchers from the University of California, Santa Cruz, measured silver concentrations 50 times greater than the natural background level. Though still well below levels that would be toxic to marine life, this contamination of what had been considered relatively pristine waters highlights the increasingly global impact of industrial emissions from Asia, the researchers said.