None of Takesha Henderson's discoveries are named Charlotte, but they are weaving a new chapter in Texas entomology. Her graduate studies at Texas A&M University have led to the discovery of 25 new spiders in Brazos County and one species found for the first time in Texas.

Scientists at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., and colleagues at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville have succeeded in imaging, in unprecedented detail, the virus that causes influenza.

Recent studies show promise for significantly reducing vascular aging by inactivating TNFa, which has been linked to blood vessel dysfunction and cell death. The related report by Csiszar et al., "Vasculoprotective effects of anti-TNFa treatment in aging," appears in the January issue of The American Journal of Pathology.

Researchers at the University of Southern California have provided the first 3-D view of a protein from an enzyme family that, through its ability to mutate genes, can both help and hinder human health.

Scientists analyzing the genomics of a marine snail have gotten an unprecedented look at brain mechanisms, discovering that the neural processes in even a simple sea creature are far from sluggish.

More than half of the dust needed for fertilizing the Brazilian rainforest is supplied by a valley in northern Chad, according to an international research team headed by Dr. Ilan Koren of the Institute's Environmental Sciences and Energy Research Department. In a study published recently in Environmental Research Letters, the scientists have explained how the Bodélé valley's unique features might be responsible for making it such a major dust provider.

A unique Mayo Clinic collaboration has revived the healing wisdom of Pacific Island cultures by testing a therapeutic plant extract described in a 17th century Dutch herbal text for its anti-bacterial properties. Early results show that extracts from the Atun tree effectively control bacteria that can cause diarrhea, as claimed by naturalist Georg Eberhard Rumpf, circa 1650. He documented his traditional healing methods in the book Ambonese Herbal.

In hemophilia, a mutated gene prevents the production of a critical blood-clotting protein. Treatments for hemophilia and other such genetic diseases, when they exist, may consist of risky blood transfusions or expensive enzyme replacement therapy. But what if the body could be induced to begin producing these proteins, say by transplanting healthy tissue with the abilities that are lacking?

Siberian hamsters are used by scientists to study seasonal physiology and behavior. A hormone implicated in the onset of human puberty also appears to control reproductive activity in seasonally breeding rodents, report Indiana University Bloomington and University of California at Berkeley scientists in the March 2007 issue of Endocrinology. The paper is now accessible online via the journal's rapid electronic publication service.

Peering deep within the cells of fruit flies, developmental biologists at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia may have discovered a new way that genes are turned on and off during development. If they're right, and the same processes are at work in higher organisms, including mammals, the findings could eventually have implications for improving the understanding of a range of diseases, including childhood cancer.

Stem cells grew, multiplied and differentiated into brain cells on a new three-dimensional scaffold of tiny protein fragments designed to be more like a living body than any other cell culture system.

The incidence of stroke in the U.S. over the past 50 years has declined, although the severity of stroke has not, according to a study in the December 27 issue of JAMA.

If a zebrafish loses a chunk of its tail fin, it'll grow back within a week. Like lizards, newts, and frogs, a zebrafish can replace surprisingly complex body parts. A tail fin, for example, has many different types of cells and is a very intricate structure. It is the fish version of an arm or leg.

Marbled Antartic cod (Notothenia rossii) Five tons of marbled Antarctic cod (Notothenia rossii), now that was surely a big surprise to scientists and crew on board of Polarstern, alike considering that previous and subsequent hauls barely ever reaped such plentiful harvests.

Photoreceptor cells (red) in the developing eye of a fruit fly initiate an unfolded protein response (yellow) to help them cope with a stressful environment. Misfolded proteins are implicated in many diseases, including neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes and types of blindness.

Credit: Rockefeller University When cells get stressed, their proteins go unfolded. It's a reaction with a straightforward name: the unfolded protein response. Now, new research from Rockefeller University shows that this phenomenon actually serves a protective role; rather than a sign that the cell has given up, it may be a mechanism by which the cells cope with adversity. The findings were reported as an advance online publication in the EMBO Journal on the Dec. 14.

Kids and adults will stay glued to video games this holiday season because the fun of playing actually is rooted in fulfilling their basic psychological needs.

People estimate that, on average, they make about 15 food- and beverage-related decisions each day. But the truth is, they make more than 15 times that -- more than 200 such decisions.

Despite the explosive growth in size and complexity of the human brain, the pace of evolutionary change among the thousands of genes expressed in brain tissue has actually slowed since the split, millions of years ago, between human and chimpanzee, an international research team reports in the December 26, 2006, issue of the journal, PLOS Biology.

Upon entering a cell, a virus often becomes dormant, turning off its genes and laying low until awakened by som e trigger from its environment. When that trigger is pulled, the virus quickly ramps up production of proteins through built-in positive-feedback loops that turn up gene transcription. (In positive feedback, production of something stimulates more production of that thing, resulting in exponential, or faster, growth.) If the viral environment were perfectly regulated and viral gene expression perfectly silenced during latency, this system would be foolproof. But this is almost never the case--there is always noise and always the potential for some low level of erroneous transcription. This poses a problem for the virus--how does it prevent stray transcription from erupting into full-blown activation?

Much like flipping a light switch, the hepatitis C virus turns on human immune defenses upon entering the body but also turns off those defenses by manipulating interaction of key cellular proteins, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found.

Scientists can predict how the distance marine larvae travel varies with ocean temperature – a key component in conservation and management of fish, shellfish and other marine species – according to a new study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Single-strand DNA can be anchored to a gold substrate for use in biodetectors by attaching a tail of adenine bases. Adenine's strong affinity for gold not only bonds the strands in place but also allows some control over the spacing by adjusting the length of the tail. Credit: NIST Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and the University of Maryland (UMD) have demonstrated a deceptively simple technique for chemically bonding single strands of DNA to gold. Among other features, they report in a forthcoming issue* of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the technique offers a convenient way to control the density of the DNA strands on the substrate, which could be important for optimizing DNA sensor arrays.

The giraffe's elongated neck has long been used in textbooks as an illustration of evolution by natural selection, but this common example has received very little experimental attention. In the January issue of the American Naturalist, researchers at the Mammal Research Institute in the Department of Zoology and Entomology at the University of Pretoria tested whether foraging competition with shorter herbivores could explain why giraffes feed mostly on leaves high in trees, despite being able to feed at lower levels as well.

Since the late 1980s, gene therapy, more than virtually any other type of therapy, has given rise not only to high expectations of treatment success but also great concerns regarding health risks. Since the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation, DFG) issued its first memorandum in 1995, this field of research has developed enormously.

Despite the fact that the people of India constitute more than one-sixth of the world's entire population, they have been underrepresented in studies related to genetic diseases. And with the growth of modernization, complex genetic diseases associated with urban and western lifestyles have risen to near-epidemic proportions, making genetic cataloging and association studies of particular importance.

Fat zapping to shed excess weight, miniature telescopes to restore vision, and smart nappies to detect common childhood infections: these are some of the new technologies that promise to transform medicine, according to this week's Christmas issue of the BMJ.

In recent years, health professionals and the general public alike have been acutely aware of the potential ravages that could result from a flu pandemic. Although many people might still recall the pandemics of 1968 and 1957, it is the infamous 1918-1920 pandemic--and the possibility of a recurrence on that scale--that causes the most trepidation.

UCSF scientists have identified a cell population that is a primary target of the degenerative brain disease known as frontotemporal dementia, which is as common as Alzheimer's disease in patients who develop dementia before age 65.

The new neurons generated as a result of neural damage due to epilepsy show a reduced excitability that could alleviate the disorder, researchers have found. The researchers said their results suggest that therapies for epilepsy aimed at inducing neurogenesis could prove effective in alleviating the disorder.

If you've ever wondered why your golf swings, fastballs or free throws don't quite turn out the same way each time, even after years of practice, there is now an answer: It's mostly in your head. That's the finding of new research published in the Dec. 21 issue of the journal Neuron by electrical engineers at Stanford University.

You know the sensation. When something has your full attention you see it vividly. And when you don't pay attention, you're liable to miss something important. Now a new Northwestern University study sheds light on how attention operates.

The widely used breast cancer drug tamoxifen (Nolvadex®), which can become less effective over time, might retain its full strength indefinitely if used along with a second drug, according to new research in mice conducted by investigators from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, and their partners. The results appear in the December 11, 2006, issue of Cancer Cell*.

A Vanderbilt researcher has discovered that some stealthy mammals have been doing something heretofore thought impossible -- using the sense of smell under water.

Increasing levels of inbreeding is a threat against the viabi lity of the Scandinavian wolf population. A study just coming out in the new journal PLoS ONE now demonstrates that inbreeding is not affecting the wolves as badly as expected. The results show that it is the most genetically variable wolf individuals that are recruited into the breeding population. An important consequence of this action of natural selection is that the negative effects of inbreeding are accumulating much slower than previously believed.

It is well known that animals use song as a way of attracting mates, but researchers have found that gibbons have developed an unusual way of scaring off predators – by singing to them.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have identified a group of novel genes that are critical in organ development.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have pinpointed a key regulatory protein that translates blood flow into gene expression. The investigators showed that in a model of mouse embryonic development a transcription factor called Klf2, which resides in cells that line blood vessels, is activated by rapid, pulsed blood flow, as reported in the December issue of Developmental Cell. Understanding Klf2's role in blood vessel and muscle biology could help with fighting atherosclerosis.

The accumulation of genetic damage in our cells is a major contributor to how we age, according to a study being published today in the journal Nature by an international group of researchers. The study found that mice completely lacking a critical gene for repairing damaged DNA grow old rapidly and have physical, genetic and hormonal profiles very similar to mice that grow old naturally. Furthermore, the premature aging symptoms of the mice led to the discovery of a new type of human progeria, a rare inherited disease in which affected individuals age rapidly and die prematurely.

The oldest-known animal eggs and embryos, whose first pictures made the cover of Nature in 1998, were so small they looked like bugs – which, it now appears, they may have been.

A team from the Institut Pasteur has recently shown that the tuberculosis bacillus hides from the immune system in its host's fat cells. This formidable pathogen is protected against even the most powerful antibiotics in these cells, in which it may remain dormant for years. This discovery, published in PLoS ONE, sheds new light on possible strategies for fighting tuberculosis. Attempts to eradicate the bacillus entirely from infected individuals should take these newly identified reservoir cells into account.