Lymph circulates in our bodies through a complex network of lymphatic vessels, of which little is known. This network is, however, of major importance for the support of the immune system and the fluid in our body. Researchers from the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) connected with the Catholic University of Leuven, are the first to indicate that this network can be studied with the help of tadpoles. This accelerates research of the lymphatic vessel network. With tadpoles one can now very quickly identify new genes that play a part in the development and functioning of the lymphatic vessel network. This is a first step in the search for solutions for illnesses related to the lymphatic vessel network, such as cancer and lymphedema.

New research published in the August 2005 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry indicates that methamphetamine abuse and HIV infection cause significant alterations in the size of certain brain structures, and in both cases the changes may be associated with impaired cognitive functions, such as difficulties in learning new information, solving problems, maintaining attention and quickly processing information. Co-occurring methamphetamine abuse and HIV infection appears to result in greater impairment than each condition alone.

Researchers at Rice University, the Baylor College of Medicine, the University of Houston and the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland have created a new class of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents that are at least 40 times more effective than the best in clinical use.

Researchers have uncovered how members of one family of antibiotics kill bacteria that make people sick.

This new knowledge may help drug developers make slight changes to these antibiotics to make them more effective against drug-resistant strains of bacteria, said Irina Artsimovitch, a study co-author and an assistant professor of microbiology at Ohio State University.

The same family of chemical signals that attracts developing sensory nerves up the spinal cord toward the brain serves to repel motor nerves, sending them in the opposite direction, down the cord and away from the brain, report researchers at the University of Chicago in the September 2005 issue of Nature Neuroscience (available online August 14). The finding may help physicians restore function to people with paralyzing spinal cord injuries.

Questions about the existence of life in outer space may have a surprisingly close-to-home answer, according to one University of Houston professor.

Understanding how life evolved on Earth is important in obtaining clues as to where else in the universe one might find life and what it might be like, said George E. Fox, a UH professor of biology and biochemistry. Fox is finishing work on a three-year research grant from NASA's Exobiology Program that seeks to understand life's origin.

Wildlife health experts from the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) warn that efforts to control the spread of avian flu across Asia and beyond must focus on better management practices on farms and in markets.

About half of new marine vibrio bacteria discovered in the last five years, can kill fish and crustacea, according to researchers at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have harnessed a mobile gene from the cabbage looper moth and modified it for routine use in mice and other vertebrates. If the new tool works as they expect, it will speed understanding of genes involved in human biology and disease and accelerate the search for effective new therapies.