A molecular ‘battle of the sexes’ long considered the major driving force in a baby’s development is being challenged by a new genetic theory of parental teamwork.

How many wildebeest should live in the Serengeti" How many grizzly bears should call Yellowstone home" Are there too few tigers in the world" Conservationist biologists grapple with the task of setting population targets for the species they are trying to protect – a decision steeped in politics, emotion, and sometimes, science.

Results from a brain-imaging study conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory in collaboration with Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York indicate that levels of a brain protein proposed as a diagnostic marker for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are not positively correlated with the disease. In fact, the study found lower levels of these "dopamine transporter" proteins in certain brain regions of ADHD patients compared with controls. The study, which will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Neuroimage and is now available online, also found that for any given level of dopamine transporters in the brain, ADHD patients experienced much higher levels of inattention compared with control subjects.

A biologist at Washington University in St. Louis and his collaborators have identified the factor in mammalian brain cells that keeps cells in synchrony so that functions like the wake-sleep cycle, hormone secretion and loco motor behaviors are coordinated daily over a 24-hour period.

Sandia National Laboratories researchers Todd Lane and Victoria VanderNoot have been awarded a research grant to develop a technology that can successfully detect deadly toxins from harmful algal blooms (HABs). The funding is provided by the Cooperative Institute for Coastal and Estuarine Environmental Technology (CICEET), a partnership of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of New Hampshire.

In the first experiments of their kind, researchers at Rice University and The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have determined that carbon nanotubes injected directly into the bloodstream of research lab animals cause no immediate adverse health effects and circulate for more than one hour before they are removed by the liver.

More than half of breast cancer patients who sought a second opinion from a multidisciplinary tumor board received a change in their recommended treatment plan, according to a new study from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Chronic smoking affects nerve cells and alters the chemical makeup of the brain, according to research presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

The increasing violence of storms under global climate change will have major effects on coral reefs – and has important implications for their future management.

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces have presented a new method with which to precisely control the permeability of microcapsules using the salt content and the temperature of the solution. In order to accomplish this, the researchers developed a theoretical model which exactly describes the processes in the polymer shell of the capsules.

Halving the number of cigarettes smoked every day in the belief that it will stave off an early death makes no difference, suggests research in Tobacco Control.

Skeletal progenitor cells differentiate into cartilage cells when one master gene actually suppresses the action of another, said Baylor College of Medicine researchers in a report that appears online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.