Investigators from six countries have completed the second phase of the International HapMap Project, an effort to identify and catalog genetic similarities and differences among populations around the world. Information provided in the first phase of the HapMap, completed in 2005, has led to the development of techniques facilitating the search for genes associated with common diseases – such as schizophrenia and heart disease – and the identification of more than 50 such disease-associated genes.

Pheromones are like the molecules you taste as you chomp on a greasy french fry: big and fatty. In research to be published in the October 17 advance online issue of Nature, Rockefeller University researchers reveal an unanticipated role for a new CD36-like protein to help cells detect these invisible communication signals that drive a wide range of behaviors, from recognizing a sibling to courting a mate, a finding that may explain what pheromone communication, pathogen recognition and fat taste perception all have in common.

Cashew nut fossils have been identified in 47-million year old lake sediment in Germany, revealing that the cashew genus Anacardium was once distributed in Europe, remote from its modern “native” distribution in Central and South America. It was previously proposed that Anacardium and its African sister genus, Fegimanra, diverged from their common ancestor when the landmasses of Africa and South America separated. However, groundbreaking new data in the October issue of the International Journal of Plant Sciences indicate that Europe may be an important biogeographic link between Africa and the New World.

A new study led by McGill University researchers shows that the human papillomavirus (HPV) screening test is far more accurate than the traditional Pap test in detecting cervical cancer. The first round of the Canadian Cervical Cancer Screening Trial (CCCaST), led by Dr. Eduardo Franco, Director of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology at McGill's Faculty of Medicine, concluded that the HPV test's ability to accurately detect pre-cancerous lesions without generating false negatives was 94.6%, as opposed to 55.4% for the Pap test.

With the aid of more than 70,000 home computer users throughout the world, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers have, for the first time, accurately predicted the three-dimensional structure of a small, naturally occurring globular protein using only its amino acid sequence. The accomplishment was achieved with a newly refined computational method for predicting protein structure, which the researchers say can also improve the detail and accuracy of protein structures generated with experimental techniques.

Scientists studying biological systems at the molecular level now have a new hybrid technique to probe the dynamics of the Holliday junction. The Holliday junction is a four-stranded DNA structure that forms during a process known as homologous recombination, which occurs when damaged DNA is repaired. Understanding how DNA repairs itself is an essential step in ultimately developing therapies for genetic disorders.

Changes in the expression of genes may be the reason why people who abuse inhalants, such as spray paint or glue, quickly develop a tolerance, biologists at The University of Texas at Austin have discovered.

In an apparent first for butterflies, the Florida Museum of Natural History will auction the naming rights for a newly discovered species online to raise money for butterfly research.

When University of Illinois crop scientist Fred Below began growing tropical maize, the form of corn grown in the tropics, he was looking for novel genes for the utilization of nitrogen fertilizer and was hoping to discover information that could be useful to American corn producers.

More than one-third of patients receiving HIV medication in Africa die or discontinue their treatment within two years, according to a study published in PLoS Medicine.

Researchers have discovered a strain of bacteria resistant to all approved drugs used to fight ear infections in children, according to an article to be published tomorrow in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). A pair of pediatricians discovered the strain because it is their standard practice to perform an uncommon procedure called tympanocentesis (ear tap) on children when several antibiotics fail to clear up their ear infections. The procedure involves puncturing the child’s eardrum and draining fluid to relieve pressure and pain. Analyzing the drained fluid is the only way to describe the bacterial strain causing the infection.

A researcher at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine has been awarded a $1.5 million, three-year technology development grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. John Greally, associate professor of medicine and of molecular genetics at Einstein, received one of six technology development grants awarded by the NHGRI as part of its ENCyclopedia Of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project.