A gene earlier linked to a rare disease plays a critical role in the body's "finely tuned balance" of fat storage and break down, new evidence reported in the May Cell Metabolism reveals. The findings elucidate the mechanism underlying healthy fat metabolism and explain why people with the genetic condition known as Chanarin-Dorfman Syndrome (CDS), who carry a mutant version of the gene, suffer from the widespread buildup of fat in tissues throughout their bodies.

A Kansas State University research team is prototyping a small, inexpensive remote-control plane as a sensing tool, also known as an unmanned aerial vehicle, to collect environmental data. The team plans to test it over the Konza Prairie Biological Station near Manhattan this summer.

Despite research efforts to find modern factors that would explain the different life expectancies of men and women, the gap is actually ancient and universal, according to University of Michigan researchers.

An Oregon Health & Science University study is adding credence to an increasingly popular theory that fusion is what bonds stem cells with bone marrow cells to regenerate organ tissue.

New research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has identified and established the substance in grapefruit juice that causes potentially dangerous interactions with certain medications.

In the United States, Lyme disease incidence has skyrocketed from 497 cases reported in 1982 (the first year national statistics were collected) to a record 23,763 in 2002.

New technologies that mimic the way insects, plants and animals overcome engineering problems could help reduce our dependence on energy, according to new research published in the Royal Society journal Interface.

A lifelong habit of trimming just a few calories from the daily diet can do more than slim the waistline - a new study shows it may help lessen the effects of aging.

Put a mouse or a rat under stress and what does it do? It stops eating. Humans should be so lucky. When people suffer nontraumatic stress they often head for the refrigerator, producing unhealthy extra pounds.

Cold, wet conditions early in the year mean that 2006 is shaping up as the worst year for California's butterflies in almost four decades, according to Art Shapiro, professor of evolution and ecology at UC Davis.