New freezing technique raises future hopes for human applications

Israeli scientists report (Thursday 15 September) in Human Reproduction[1] that they have successfully transplanted whole frozen and thawed ovaries in sheep, retrieved oocytes from these ovaries and triggered them in the laboratory into early embryonic development.

Findings could lead to new immune therapy for breast cancer

A team from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine has shown that by using a cancer vaccine based on the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes, they can cure mice with established breast tumors. Cancer vaccines, which are more properly described as immunotherapy, work by boosting an immune response against tumor-associated antigens.

Nature or nurture? It's the eternal question for so many human interactions and personality traits. Now, it appears, nature may play a larger role than nurture when it comes to family relationships between adolescents and their parents.

Remnants of above-ground nuclear testing provide a way to determine age at time of death

The radioactive carbon-14 produced by above-ground nuclear testing in the 1950s and 1960s is providing forensic scientists with a more precise way to determine a person's age at the time of death. The method could help in the identification of victims of Hurricane Katrina and other large-scale disasters.

Understanding macrophages could lead to ways to prevent HIV-associated dementia

Bacteria-eating cells that generally fight infection may cause dementia in HIV patients, University of Florida and University of California at San Francisco researchers have found.

Ames Laboratory researchers explore new frontier of metabolomics.

The biotech field of genomics gives scientists genetic roadmaps to link certain genes to diseases. The subsequent study of proteins produced by certain genes spawned the field of proteomics.

In an effort to understand the biological function of the microRNA mir1, Drs. Nicholas Sokol and Victor Ambros (Darmouth Medical School) have studied the expression profile, transcriptional regulation and loss-of-function phenotype of Drosophila mir-1 (Dmir-1). Mir-1 is an evolutionarily conserved miRNA, whose expression in mouse and humans is limited to heart and skeletal muscle. Strikingly, their study shows that, in Drosophila embryos, mir-1 expression is not required for mesodermal cell fate decisions or cell proliferation during embryogenesis, but rather, that it appears to act to reinforce and maintain cell identity during times of rapid growth.

Research could lead to treatment that would help stop a smallpox outbreak

Researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology (LIAI) have made a major advancement toward protecting society against a smallpox outbreak by identifying an antibody in humans that quickly fights the smallpox virus.

The recent discovery of citrus greening (huanglongbing) in samples collected from trees in South Florida poses a definite threat to Florida's $9 billion commercial citrus industry. Proper identification and eradication methods are needed to reduce the amount of crop loss caused by this disease, say plant pathologists with The American Phytopathological Society (APS). Citrus greening is a bacterial disease that affects the phloem system of citrus plants causing the infected trees to yellow, decline, and possibly die within a few years. The bacterium is spread by an insect, the citrus psyllid.

Links to article may become a daily thing, as I can't clear them fast enough! Too much interesting things coming up each day (can't complain about that!). As a bonus, I think that these articles are more likely to spark up discussions than press releases.

First land animals may have shuffled not walked
Chinese fungus fad poses eco-threat
Asian peat fires add to warming
Footage reveals threat to stunning Irish corals
Camera detects fluorescent sea life
Irish coral reefs threatened