Researchers from Biotech Research & Innovation Centre (BRIC) at University of Copenhagen have identified a new group of proteins that regulate the function of stem cells. The results are published in the new issue of Cell.

Scientists from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana have found that people employed in chimpanzee-focused research and tourism in a park in western Uganda are exchanging gastrointestinal bacteria – specifically Escherichia coli – with local chimpanzee populations. And some of the E. coli strains migrating to chimps are resistant to antibiotics used by humans in Uganda.

Two enzymes in meningitis bacteria which prevent the body from successfully fighting off the disease, and make the infection extremely virulent, have been identified in new research published today.

Research led by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) may link viruses that have been considered harmless to chromosomal instability (CIN) and cancer. "If the model that we propose is correct, protecting the body against viruses, or preventing the cell fusion that they cause may decrease the frequency of cancers and prevent their progression," said CSHL’s lead investigator Yuri Lazebnik.

Expanding waistlines, unsightly bulges: people will gladly remove excess body fat to improve their looks. But unwanted fat also contains stem cells with the potential to repair defects and heal injuries in the body. A team led by Philippe Collas at the University of Oslo in Norway has identified certain chemical marks that allow him to predict which, among the hundreds of millions of stem cells in liposuctioned fat, are best at regenerating tissue.

A study of 36 Spanish honeys from different floral origins revealed that honeys generated by bees feeding on honeydew have greater antioxidant properties than those produced by bees feeding on nectar. The study is published in this month’s edition of the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.

Indoor air purifiers that produce even small quantities of ozone may actually make the air dirtier when used at the same time as household cleaning products, scientists at UC Irvine have discovered.

The Influenza Genome Sequencing Project, funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announced today that it has achieved a major milestone. The entire genetic blueprints of more than 2,000 human and avian influenza viruses taken from samples around the world have been completed and the sequence data made available in a public database.

Lizards that signal to rivals with a visual display "shout" to get their point across, UC Davis researchers have found.

Planning and worrying about the future has always been considered an exclusively human activity, but now at least one species of bird has also been found to plan for tomorrow. The finding also raises the intriguing possibility that, like humans, birds may get anxious about the future. Research published today (22 February) in the journal Nature shows that western scrub-jays are able to plan for future food shortages by caching food. The birds are shown to have learned from their previous experiences of food scarcity, storing food for future use in places where they anticipate future slim pickings. The researchers at the University of Cambridge believe this is the first known example of future planning in animals.