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Molecular & Cell Biology

Any photographer can vouch for the difficulty of capturing a clear picture of a moving target.

Molecular & Cell Biology

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have found that hair follicles in adult mice regenerate by re-awakening genes once active only in developing embryos. These findings provide unequivocal evidence for the first time that, like other animals such as newts and salamanders, mammals have the power to regenerate. These findings are published in the May 17 issue of Nature.

AIDS & HIV

A vaccine that prevents HIV infection remains an important goal in the fight against AIDS, but the current top HIV vaccine candidates may not work in this way, say scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Rather, the first successful preventive HIV vaccines, if administered prior to HIV infection, may reduce HIV levels in the body, thereby delaying the progression to AIDS and the need to start antiretroviral drugs. These vaccines may also reduce the chance that a person infected with HIV would pass the virus on to other people, according to NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., and Margaret I. Johnston, Ph.D., director of NIAID’s Vaccine Research Program in the Division of AIDS.

Molecular & Cell Biology

Cancer epidemiologists at the University at Buffalo have identified specific genes that are most likely to become cancer promoters when exposed to a process called DNA promoter hypermethylation.

Biology

A researcher at the University at Buffalo’s Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) is investigating the “brain’s own marijuana” -- called endocannabinoid -- in the regulation of stress, stress-related behavior and anxiety.

Microbiology

Mice with chronic herpes virus infections can better resist the bacterium that causes plague and a bacterium that causes one kind of food poisoning, researchers report in this week's Nature.

Biology

Researchers cruising for creatures that live in the deepest parts of the Pacific Ocean found a new species of sea anemone living in the unlikeliest of habitats – the carcass of a dead whale.

Health & Medicine

Researchers at the University of Warwick have found that the standard British cooking habit of boiling vegetables severely damages the anticancer properties of many Brassica vegetables such as broccoli, Brussel sprouts, cauliflower and green cabbage.

Microbiology

Keeping at arm's length won't protect you from catching an infectious disease, according to new research by Queensland University of Technology which reveals airborne viruses can spread far and wide.

Health & Medicine

Antipsychotic drugs do most of their work in the brain, but they also leave behind in the bloodstream a trail of hundreds of chemicals that may be used in the future to direct better treatment for schizophrenia and other psychiatric conditions, say Duke University Medical Center researchers.

Molecular & Cell Biology

Molecular studies recently revealed new genetic information concerning the long-disputed origin of the “European potato.” Scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of La Laguna, and the International Potato Center used genetic markers to prove that the remnants of the earliest known landraces of the European potato are of Andean and Chilean origin. They report their findings in the May-June 2007 issue of Crop Science.