Scientists may have found a way to throw a wrench in the transmissions of several speed demons of the parasite world. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Harvard University have identified a protein that could help them develop drugs to stop or slow cell invasion by malaria and other parasites known as apicomplexans.

The University of California, San Diego, with support from the National Institutes of Health and the Whitaker Foundation, has installed a supercomputer dedicated to solving a wide range of challenging biological problems. The 210-node Dell PowerEdge Linux cluster capable of 2.6 trillion mathematical operations per second, the second most powerful computer cluster on campus, will be used to analyze everything from the behavior of protein molecules and subcellular structures such as nerve synapses and cardiac muscle cells, to multicellular tissue and the whole heart.

Although most people think of bats as stealthy mammals that flit about in the night sky, at least one species has evolved a terrestrial trot never before seen in bats, according to a recent Cornell University study.

A team of researchers led by University of Illinois at Chicago professor S. Jay Olshansky is predicting a decline in life expectancy in the United States later this century.

That prediction, which is based on the dramatic rise in obesity, especially among young people and minorities, is from a special report appearing in the March 17 issue in the New England Journal of Medicine.

New York University biologists have uncovered how the innate immune system in mice's brains fights viral infection of neurons. The findings, published as the cover study in the latest issue of Virology, show that proteins in neurons fight the virus at multiple stages--by preventing the formation of viral RNA and proteins, and blocking the virus' release, which could infect other cells in the brain.

The first comprehensive survey of gene activity in the X chromosomes of women has revealed an unexpected level of variation among individuals, according to new work by researchers at the Duke University Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy (IGSP) and Pennsylvania State University.

The presence of drug-resistant, pathogenic bacteria on uncooked poultry products varies by commercial brand and is likely related to antibiotic use in production, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Their study is the first to directly compare bacterial contamination of poultry products sold in U.S. supermarkets from food producers who use antibiotics and from those who claim they do not. The study focused on antibiotic resistance, specifically fluoroquinolone-resistance in Campylobacter, a pathogen responsible for 2.4 million cases of food-borne illness per year in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study is published online in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

Experts in bioengineering, imaging, molecular genetics, immunology, ethics, hematology/oncology and cellular biology to collaborate on Proposition 71 research

Drawing together experts from fields as diverse as engineering to molecular biology, UCLA officials announced March 16 the formation of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Medicine to conduct embryonic and adult stem cell research that may lead to better treatments for HIV, cancer and neurological disorders.

Norovirus Prevalent in Those Suffering from Traveler's Diarrhea

Norovirus may be the most common cause of travelers' diarrhea for United States citizens returning from Mexico and Guatamala say researchers from the U.S., Guatemala, Mexico and Sweden. Their findings appear in the March 2005 issue of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology.