Photo by Jean K. KrejcaCave crickets travel farther from their homes to forage -- by about double -- than their previously reported range, researchers have discovered. In Texas, that means protective buffer areas around caves may need to be extended to protect endangered invertebrate species that live inside and depend on the crickets.

A new study shows that while we're winning isolated battles, we could well lose the war to prevent the devastating spread of the emerald ash borer in eastern Canada and the United States. It's a failure that would cost billions of dollars in lost timber and ornamental trees, and dramatically change the forest and neighbourhood landscape in eastern North America - with even more impact than Dutch elm disease.

Two Brown Medical School biologists have figured out the fate of healthy protein when it comes in contact with the infectious prion form in yeast: The protein converts to the prion form, rendering it infectious. In an instant, good protein goes bad.

Concerns over the privacy of patients could be hampering efforts to spot disease clusters and monitor the health effects of environmental pollution, according to researchers in the latest edition of the Journal of Biomedical Informatics.

New research shows that bacteria lurking in household dust produce chemicals that may trigger asthma and asthma-related symptoms such as wheezing. These bacterial chemicals, called endotoxins, particularly those found on bedroom floors, were linked with increased respiratory problems in adults. This study, supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), a part of the National Institutes of Health, is the first nationwide study of endotoxins in the household environment, and it involved analysis of more than 2,500 dust samples from 831 homes across the U.S.

Rice scientists replace pricey solvents with cheap processing fluidsIn an important advance toward the large-scale manufacture of fluorescent quantum dots, scientists at Rice University have developed a new method of replacing the pricey solvents used in quantum dot synthesis with cheaper oils that are commonplace at industrial chemical plants.

Smart plastic films programmed to release a precise sequence of drugs are poised to revolutionise drug delivery thanks to a breakthrough in polymer chemistry. The films could be used to coat implants such as artificial hips and tissue scaffolds to deliver phased shots over a period of hours or weeks.

Grizzly bears give bear canister for campers a real testIn a scene reminiscent of the famous Samsonite luggage commercial when a gorilla puts the product's durability to the test, grizzly bears at the Bronx Zoo gave a bear-proof food canister designed for backpackers a real beating, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). But in spite of their best efforts, the bears could not open the canister, designed to secure food and garbage near backcountry campsites and thus reduce the number of human-bear encounters in the process.

Project's goal to empower future drug designAs part of a $4.88 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), molecular biologists from the University of Rochester Medical Center will join a team seeking to create the first complete wiring diagram of a living cell. By wiring diagram, researchers mean a detailed model, not only of the cell's genes and their function, but also of the interplay between them. When complete, the diagram has the potential to reveal cellular approaches to treating many diseases, including cancer.

A study of how the immune system reacts to strains of antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria--emerging strains that sicken otherwise healthy people, or so-called "community-acquired" infections--has shown for the first time that these strains are more deadly and better at evading human immune defenses than more common S. aureus strains that originate in hospitals and other health-care settings.

An Earth System model developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign indicates that the best location to store carbon dioxide in the deep ocean will change with climate change.