Recent research suggested that ancient Neanderthals might have had an accelerated childhood compared to that of modern humans but that seems flawed, based on a new assessment by researchers from Ohio State University and the University of Newcastle .

Results advance quest for viral-based therapies for cancer

Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center continue to make strides in their work to develop the next generation of effective viral-based therapies for cancer. Two papers about promising research with genetically engineered viruses studied in mice, published today in the journals Cancer Research and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), bring us significantly closer to this objective and the start of clinical trials with these viral-based therapies in cancer patients.

Antibiotic resistance has put humans in an escalating 'arms race' with infectious bacteria, as scientists try to develop new antibiotics faster than the bacteria can evolve new resistance strategies. But now, researchers have a new strategy that may give them a leg up in the race -- reproducing in the lab the natural evolution of the bacterial enzymes that confer resistance.

Researchers at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development have determined the sequence in which the malaria parasite disperses from the red blood cells it infects. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development is one of the Institutes comprising the National Institutes of Health.

Cornell University researchers have discovered the 3-D crystal structure of a protein, human CD38, which may lead to important discoveries about how cells release calcium -- a mineral used in almost every cellular process. The findings also may offer insights into mechanisms involved in certain diseases, ranging from leukemia to diabetes and HIV-AIDS.

Genomatix integrates connections map data into BiblioSphere

Genomatix Software GmbH and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) today announced an agreement that allows integration of data from the Signal Transduction Knowledge Environment into Genomatix's BibliospherePE pathway knowledge base and analysis system.

Bacteria and humans use a number of tools to direct perhaps the most important function in cells -- the accurate copying of DNA during cell division. New research published this week in Molecular Cell from the laboratory of Rockefeller University's Michael O'Donnell, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, now shows that one of these proteins, the beta sliding clamp, serves as a toolbelt from which the correct proteins are retrieved to enable DNA replication in the face of DNA damage.

Broken sewers, flooded industrial plants and dead bodies are all likely to blame for poisoning the waters being drained from New Orleans.

About five to seven million years ago, when the lineage of humans and chimpanzees split, edible root plants similar to rutabagas and turnips may have been one of the reasons. According to research by anthropologists Greg Laden of the University of Minnesota and Richard Wrangham of Harvard University, the presence of fleshy underground storage organs like roots and tubers must have sustained our ancestors who left the rain forest to colonize the savannah. They have published their research in the October issue of the Journal of Human Evolution.