It's been a year since the official launch of Biology News Net! We improved a lot since then... if you want to see the website in its first incarnation, visit the defunct The Scientist Blog! That's right... for those who didn't knew, this website was started as a blog as I was writing my Masters thesis. There's still room for improvement I'm sure; if you have ideas / suggestions / comments, use the comment form, the forum or the contact form!

Only one thing bothers me: 276 registered users and almost no comments! I just revamped the comments section at the bottom of each article; hope it will help!

So happy 1st year to Biology News Net!

Scientists have completed the first human clinical trial of a recombinant vaccine for the deadly toxin ricin – a potential bioterror threat – and the results indicate the vaccine is safe and effective in eliciting ricin-neutralizing antibodies, the UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report.

Sylvia grooms Sierra (deceased). (Photo: Anne Engh) When Sylvia the baboon lost Sierra, her closest grooming partner and daughter, to a lion, she responded in a way that would be considered very human-like: she looked to friends for support. According to researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, baboons physiologically respond to bereavement in ways similar to humans, with an increase in stress hormones called glucocorticoids. Baboons can lower their glucocorticoid levels through friendly social contact, expanding their social network after the loss of specific close companions.

The genetic code of marsupials has now been documented for the first time. An international team led by Kathy Belov from the University of Sydney's Faculty of Veterinary Science published an analysis of the marsupial genome in the open access journal PLoS Biology. The paper details the evolution of an important cluster of immune genes known as the MHC using available genome sequences of the gray, short-tailed opossum (Monodelphis domestica), a marsupial found in South America.

Tens of millions of Asian vultures-including the oriental white-backed vulture (Gyps bengalensis), above-have vanished from the Indian subcontinent since the early 1990s (Image: Goran Ekstrom)Today saw a glimmer of hope for the three species of Asian vulture threatened with extinction.

Deadly and damaging toxins that allow anthrax to cause disease and death in mammals have similar toxic effects in fruit flies, according to a study conducted by biologists at the University of California, San Diego.

Investigators have discovered that some type of protective system goes into action in some cases when a baby's immune system is deficient. This discovery indicates a hidden safety net that might have far-reaching consequences for treating diseases of the immune system such as AIDS. The Mayo Clinic-led study was conducted with colleagues in Toronto and Baltimore, and is reported in the early online edition of the Feb. 1 Journal of Immunology (http://www.jimmunol.org/future/176.3.shtml).

A "starry sky" map linking the myriad interactions between the influenza virus and its human host will help guide researchers in creating new anti-viral drugs, say researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Scientists have discovered that a wide variety of different cancers actually share something in common – a molecular "signature" made up of tiny bits of genetic material called microRNA (miRNA) that target key cancer genes and promote malignant growth.

Every year an estimated 8 million children -- about 6 percent of total births worldwide -- are born with a serious birth defect of genetic or partially genetic origin, according to a new report from the March of Dimes.

Scientists at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Plant Biology have found that photosynthetic bacteria living in scalding Yellowstone hot springs have two radically different metabolic identities. As the sun goes down, these cells quit their day job of photosynthesis and unexpectedly begin to fix nitrogen, converting nitrogen gas (N2) into compounds that are useful for cell growth.

A 6.2 mm long male Photocorynus spiniceps, fused to the middle of the back of a 46 mm long female, is the world's smallest known, sexually mature vertebrate. Credit: T.W. Pietsch/University of Washington The authors of a paper in this week's Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Section B, who say their 7.9 mm-long fish from a peat swamp in Southeast Asia is the smallest fish and vertebrate known, have failed to make note of work published last fall that describes sexually mature, male anglerfishes measuring 6.2 mm to 7.4 mm in length.

There is a lot of good advice to help us avoid becoming obese, such as "Eat less," and "Exercise." But here's a new and surprising piece of advice based on a promising area of obesity research: "Wash your hands."

Damage to articular cartilage (cartilage covering the ends of bones where they meet in a joint) frequently occurs due to injury or illness, and can lead to degenerative disease. Treatments and experimental approaches to repair this articular cartilage have achieved limited results, but currently there is no method to fully restore this type of injured cartilage. Tissue engineering involving the delivery of therapeutic proteins to the injured site is a promising new approach to repairing articular cartilage.

Scientists at the University of York have launched a new research project which aims to develop ways of making bones from blood.

Mount Sinai School of Medicine researchers have identified the precursors of cells in the skin that are part of the first line of defense against invading pathogens. The study will appear on Nature Immunology's website this week and will be published in a future issue.

Offering free HIV tests instead of charging a small fee is more cost-effective at preventing HIV infections and draws in three times as many people for testing, according to a Duke University Medical Center study conducted in Tanzania.

For the first time, researchers can now peer inside intact cells to not only identify RNA-binding proteins, but also observe–in real-time–the intricate activities of these special molecules that make them key players in managing some of the cell's most basic functions. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine who developed the new technology see this advance as one of the next logical steps in genomics research. Senior author James Eberwine, PhD, Professor of Pharmacology at Penn, and colleagues published their research this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In an article appearing online today in the journal Nature Methods, researchers at the EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) unveil a powerful new tool that will facilitate genetic research and open up new avenues for the clinical treatment of genetic disease.

Carnegie Mellon University scientist Chien Ho and his colleagues have developed a promising tool that uses magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to track immune cells as they infiltrate a transplanted heart in the early stages of organ rejection. This pre-clinical advance, described in an upcoming issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), ultimately could provide a non-invasive way to detect transplant rejection in patients.

A University of New South Wales (UNSW) researcher based at the Diabetes Transplant Unit (DTU) at Sydney's Prince of Wales Hospital has produced a human embryonic stem cell (hESC) line without the use of any animal products. The breakthrough eliminates the risk of animal-to-human contamination in potential stem cell therapy treatments.

A large, clawed frog is helping Oregon Health & Science University researchers gather a princely sum of knowledge on Fanconi anemia, a rare, genetic, cancer-susceptibility syndrome.

In the continuing battle against antibiotic resistance, two new studies shed light on the complex defense mechanisms pathogenic bacteria use to evade antibiotic attack, an understanding of which could lead to new, more effective antibiotics to help save lives and combat the growing problem of antibiotic resistance. The studies, both of which target chemical components in the protective membrane surrounding bacterial cells, will appear in the February 17 inaugural print issue of ACS Chemical Biology, a new monthly publication of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

A fascinating new study from the forthcoming issue of The American Naturalist attempts to explain the mysterious persistence of two forms of females in many diving beetle populations. Their findings have important implications for theories of sexual conflict, which arises when the costs and benefits of multiple matings differ for males and females.

The location of a piece of real estate may be its most important feature to many Realtors, and bioengineering researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the University of Virginia have reported that the location of genes and other features distributed along the chromosomes of bacteria and simpler organisms also is fundamentally important to how microbial cells operate.

Scientists have sequenced and compared the genomes of planktonic microbes living throughout the water column in the Pacific Ocean. The pioneering study yielded insight into the specialization of microbial communities at each depth--ranging from 40 to more than 13,000 feet.

A five-year, $8.8 million pilot project to examine whether seeding clouds with silver iodide produces a measurable increase in snowfall over Wyoming's Medicine Bow, Sierra Madre, and Wind River mountain ranges starts this month with intensive observations of Wyoming snow clouds. Scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) designed the experiment to evaluate a technique that has been mired in controversy for decades.

University of Pittsburgh researchers announced they have genetically engineered an avian flu vaccine from the critical components of the deadly H5N1 virus that completely protected mice and chickens from infection. Avian flu has devastated bird populations in Southeast Asia and Europe and so far has killed more than 80 people.

Sequence differences in less than 0.2% of the 3-billion-base human genome play a vital role in a bewildering variety of human disease. Today, researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the Cambridge University's Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, together with international colleagues report in PLoS Genetics their detailed maps of differences implicated in disease as well as genes that are unchanged in recent human history.

An article by University of Pittsburgh Professor of Anthropology Jeffrey H. Schwartz and University of Salerno Professor of Biochemistry Bruno Maresca, published Jan. 30 in the New Anatomist journal, shows that the emerging understanding of cell structure lends strong support to Schwartz's theory of evolution, originally explained in his seminal work, Sudden Origins: Fossils, Genes, and the Emergence of Species (John Wiley & Sons, 2000).

It wasn't publicized, other than by word of mouth, and still the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine was overwhelmed with requests. Since 1998, the school's oncology department has been producing an anti-cancer vaccine for dogs diagnosed with melanoma. Though it is still an experimental treatment, dog owners from all over the nation have wanted to participate in the study, on the remote chance that this would help their pet.

A study of seven tropical forests around the world has revealed that nature encourages biodiversity by favoring the growth of less common trees. The landmark study, conducted by 33 ecologists from 12 countries and published in the Jan. 27 issue of the journal Science, conclusively demonstrates that diversity matters and has ecological importance to tropical forests.

Each line in this illustration symbolizes the geographic movement of a single dollar bill (or a bill in any denomination) from either Seattle (blue) or New York (yellow) to various destinations in the U.S. The bills traveled for less than a week. Credit: UCSB and the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self Organization Using a popular internet game that traces the travels of dollar bills, scientists have unveiled statistical laws of human travel in the United States, and developed a mathematical description that can be used to model the spread of infectious disease in this country. This model is considered a breakthrough in the field.

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) and the American Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery (ASRM) today unveiled a landmark joint document, Facial Transplantation-ASPS/ASRM Guiding Principles, to assist plastic surgeons considering participation in facial transplantation procedures.

Like any other organism, an influenza virus's success in life is measured by its genetic track record, its ability to pass on genes from one generation to the next.

University of Pittsburgh researcher Alexander Star and colleagues at California-based company Nanomix, Inc., have developed devices made of carbon nanotubes that can find mutations in genes causing hereditary diseases, they report in the Jan. 16 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. This method is less expensive and takes less time than conventional techniques.

In experiments with mice, researchers have found that eliminating what appears to be a master genetic switch for the development of pain-sensing neurons knocks out the animals' response to "neuropathic pain." Such pain is abnormal pain that outlasts the injury and is associated with nerve and/or central nervous system changes. The animals rendered deficient in the gene, called Runx1, also showed lack of response to discomfort caused by heat and cold and inflammation. The researchers said that their findings, reported in the February 2, 2006, issue of Neuron, could have implications for the design of improved pain therapies.

A new general microbiology textbook aimed at undergraduate students comes with not one, but two online resources. Written by eminent scientists with practical teaching, textbook writing and research experience, Microbe, will engage students in the learning process with its clear, reader-friendly style and a unique perspective of the field.

A team led by a University of Minnesota researcher has found a universal rule that regulates the metabolism of plants of all kinds and sizes and that may also offer a key to calculating their carbon dioxide emissions, a number that must be known precisely in order to construct valid models of global carbon dioxide cycling.

A study published in the latest issue of Conservation Biology examines the effects of humans on Magellanic Penguins and finds no immediate, negative effects of tourism.