Differences in gene expression levels between people of European versus African ancestry can affect how each group responds to certain drugs or fights off specific infections, report researchers from the University of Chicago Medical Center and the Expression Research Laboratory at Affymetrix Inc. of Santa Clara, CA.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have discovered a possible target to treat bloodstream bacterial infections.

Schizophrenia emerges from an altered pattern of brain development, and researchers continue to search for the genes that cause the brain to develop along a path that ultimately leads to schizophrenia. In a high priority article to be published in Biological Psychiatry on March 1st, researchers report their findings on a new genetic link to schizophrenia.

The distinctive ability of mothers to identify the cries of their offspring is widely evident in nature, where it is critical to the survival of these offspring. In humans, we are aware that the distinctive ability of mothers to recognize and respond to the smiles and cries of their babies plays an important role in the psychological, cognitive, and social development of these babies. We have had a very limited understanding of how the maternal brain accomplishes these amazing feats, but a new study published in the February 15th issue of Biological Psychiatry now provides some new insight.

A gene crucial for embryonic development can quickly become a potent cancer promoter in adult mice after a genetic misalignment, according to researchers from Fox Chase Cancer Center, causing white blood cells to become cancerous spontaneously.

Australian cane toad (Chaunus [Bufo] marinus) Why do some invasive species expand rapidly in a new environment while others do not" Scientists from the United States and Australia are beginning to make headway on this question after analyzing how fast cane toads invaded different regions of Australia.

An area of the brain involved in the planning and production of spoken and signed language in humans plays a similar role in chimpanzee communication, researchers report online on February 28th in the journal Current Biology, a publication of Cell Press.

Why do we almost instinctively treat babies as special, protecting them and enabling them to survive" Darwin originally pointed out that there is something about infants which prompts adults to respond to and care for them which allows our species to survive. Nobel-Prize-winning zoologist Konrad Lorenz proposed that it is the specific structure of the infant face, including a relatively large head and forehead, large and low lying eyes and bulging cheek region, that serves to elicit these parental responses. But the biological basis for this has remained elusive.

Several strains of the bird flu virus that raged across southern China were blocked from entering Thailand and Vietnam, UC Irvine researchers have discovered.

They may not be on most people’s list of most attractive species, but bats definitely have animal magnetism. Researchers from the Universities of Leeds and Princeton have discovered that bats use a magnetic substance in their body called magnetite as an ‘internal compass’ to help them navigate.

“We have identified a key connection of signaling pathways in the cascade of events leading to sepsis. This defines a crucial point where the immune system spirals out of control to cause severe sepsis and where there is an opportunity for therapeutic intervention,” says Scripps Research Professor Wolfram Ruf, who led the research with his postdoctoral fellow Frank Niessen. Their results are published in the February 27 advance, online issue of Nature.

The research groups of the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences of the University of Helsinki and the University of California in San Diego have discovered a gene that is centrally involved in the regulation of carbon dioxide uptake for photosynthesis and water evaporation in plants. The discovery can aid the development of drought-tolerant crops. The article is published online ahead of print in Nature’s Advance Online Publication (AOP) on 27 February 2008.

High-speed video of rats using their whiskers to explore different surfaces has given researchers significant insights into the subtle mechanics of their tactile sensory system. Such information is important because the rat tactile machinery is a widely used laboratory model for studying how energy from sound or touch is translated into neural activity. Thus, basic insights from studying the rat system could aid in understanding the senses of hearing and touch in all mammals, including humans.