Protecting the Great Barrier Reef from the impacts of climate change, natural disasters and rising human pressures will be a key test of Australia’s ability to keep our natural environment healthy and resilient.

HOUSTON, July 19, 2007 -- Rice University physicists have unveiled an innovative way of finding out how proteins get their shape based on how they unfold when pulled apart. The experimental method could be of widespread use in the field of protein folding science, which has grown dramatically in the past decade, due in part to the discovery that misfolded proteins play a key role in diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Usually, the synthesis of short protein chains (polypeptides) begins with the production of their components, the amino acids. But it can be done differently: In the journal Angewandte Chemie, Chinese researchers report a considerably more convenient method that is similar to olefin polymerization, which is used for the mass production of plastics such as polyethylene. The advantage of this reaction is that it uses inexpensive starting materials and would be ideal for industrial production.

Joint research by Dr. Leonid Brodsky, of the Institute of Evolution of the University of Haifa, and Dr. Milton Taylor, of Indiana University, led to the discovery of a mathematical method which can identify which genes in our bodies conduct the battle against the various viruses that attack us. In their research, they identified 37 genes out of 22,000 possible genes which fight the hepatitis C virus.

Our experiences –the things we see, hear, or do—can trigger long-term changes in the strength of the connections between nerve cells in our brain, and these persistent changes are how the brain encodes information as memory. As reported in Neuron this week, Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered a new biochemical mechanism for memory storage, one that may have a connection with addictive behavior.

Decreasing the number of nurses on duty in an intensive care unit (ICU) increases the risk of serious infection, according to a report published in the open access journal Critical Care.

Statins are not all equal when it comes to their potential to guard against dementia, according to a study published in the online open access journal BMC Medicine. Statins are cholesterol-lowering drugs used by those with heart disease. The new findings suggest that simvastatin is associated with a lower incidence of dementia and Parkinson’s disease. Disagreement over whether statins could guard against these conditions has meant the benefits to dementia sufferers to date have been unclear.

New species are evading detection using a foolproof disguise – their own unchanged appearance. Research published in the online open access journal, BMC Evolutionary Biology, suggests that the phenomenon of different animal species not being visually distinct despite other significant genetic differences is widespread in the animal kingdom. DNA profiles and distinct mating groups are the only way to spot an evolutionary splinter group from their look-alike cousins, introducing uncertainty to biodiversity estimates globally.

Researchers have found a gene variant that can more than double the risk of developing the degenerative eye disease, age-related macular degeneration.