Researchers at the University of Reading, School of Pharmacy have developed an important new technique to study one of the most common causes of premature birth and prenatal mortality. The findings are published in the November 7 issue of the online, open-access journal PLoS ONE.

Researchers at the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases and the Genome Institute of Singapore have identified new host genes associated with dengue virus infection, which may open new avenues to developing a drug to treat the disease.

White bass wild-caught and sold commercially contained significantly higher levels of mercury, arsenic and selenium than fish caught near former industrial areas. The University of Pittsburgh study, abstract number 161184, is being presented at a special session on “Contaminants in Freshwater Fish: Toxicity, Sources and Risk Communication,” at 8:30 a.m., Wednesday, Nov. 7, at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association in Washington, D.C.

Exposing estrogen-sensitive breast cancer cells to extracts of channel catfish caught in areas with heavy sewer and industrial waste causes the cells to multiply, according to a University of Pittsburgh study being presented at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association in Washington, D.C. The abstract, number 159141, will be presented at a special session on “Contaminants in Freshwater Fish: Toxicity, Sources and Risk Communication,” at 8:30 a.m., Wednesday, Nov. 7.

A theory explaining the evolution of giant rodents, miniature elephants, and even miniature humans on islands has been called into questions by new research published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

Scientists have discovered how dinosaurs used to breathe in what provides clues to how they evolved and how they might have lived.

Canadian researchers expect to accelerate the war on cancer by tapping into a global network of hundreds of thousands of people who volunteer their idle computer time to tackle some of the world’s most complex problems.

Copper can damage a molecule that escorts out of the brain a substance called amyloid beta that builds up in toxic quantities in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. The new findings demonstrate one way in which copper might contribute to the development of the disease, though scientists say much more research needs to be done to clarify what role, if any, copper ultimately plays.

Patients with chronic hepatitis C and advanced liver disease who did not respond to previous standard therapy experienced significant decreases in their liver enzymes, viral levels, and liver inflammation following treatment with long-term pegylated interferon. However, the treatment did not slow or prevent the progression of serious liver disease. These findings come from the clinical trial, Hepatitis C Antiviral Long-Term Treatment Against Cirrhosis (HALT-C) and were reported at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease in Boston on November 5, 2007. HALT-C is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with additional support from Hoffmann-La Roche Inc.