Fishing activities can provoke volatile fluctuations in the populations they target, but it’s not often clear why. A new study published in the journal Nature by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and colleagues has identified the general underlying mechanism.

Some primates have evolved big brains because their extra brainpower helps them live and reproduce longer, an advantage that outweighs the demands of extra years of growth and development they spend reaching adulthood, anthropologists from Duke University and the University of Zurich have concluded in a new study.

Do influenza viruses persist in low levels year-round in the northern and southern hemispheres, or does a new crop of the virus emerge afresh in tropical zones such as Southeast Asia before spreading into temperate regions around the globe" Researchers have provided an answer to this long-standing question: new strains arise each year.

Two new international studies by researchers at the Mayo Clinic site in Florida are rounding out the notion that Parkinson’s disease is largely caused by inherited genetic mutations that pass through scores of related generations over hundreds, if not thousands of years. These genetic influences, which can be small but additive, or large and causative, overturn common beliefs that the neurodegenerative disease mostly occurs in a random fashion or is due to undetermined environmental factors.

The extra fat we carry around our middle could be making us hungrier, so we eat more, which in turn leads to even more belly fat. Dr. Yaiping Yang and his colleagues at the Lawson Health Research Institute affiliated with The University of Western Ontario found abdominal fat tissue can reproduce a hormone that stimulates fat cell production. The researchers hope this discovery will change in the way we think about and treat abdominal obesity.

Molecules from cone snail venom and African plants are being used by Queensland researchers as a blueprint to develop an oral drug to treat chronic pain.

The world’s oldest recorded tree is a 9,550 year old spruce in the Dalarna province of Sweden.

The NIST terahertz imaging system reveals slight temperature differences, as shown in this post-processed image. The color scale ranges from blue indicating 301 K or 28.75 degrees C, to red indicating 302.5 K or 29.35 degrees C. The image was made of the test scene shown in the photo, a room-temperature ring on top of a warmer absorber material. Quantitative analysis shows the current system can distinguish structures with dimensions as small as 4 millimeters, to be significantly improved in the future. Credit: NIST Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a new imaging system that detects naturally occurring terahertz radiation with unprecedented sensitivity and resolution. The technology may become a new tool chemical and biochemical analyses ranging from early tumor detection to rapid and precise identification of chemical hazards for homeland security instruments.

Recent discoveries about the role of stem cells in cancer have altered the landscape of cancer research. As scientists learn more their cancer-initiating properties, stem cells are emerging as potential therapeutic targets for many types of cancers. Studies presented at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, April 12-16, report stem cell discoveries related to pancreatic, bladder, ovarian, and breast cancer, and glioma.

From autopsies, researchers have long known that some people die with sharp minds and perfect memories, but their brains riddled with the plaques and tangles of Alzheimer’s disease. New research shows that those people have a larger part of the brain called the hippocampus. The research will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology 60th Annual Meeting in Chicago, April 12 – April 19, 2008.

A new method that uses nanotechnology to rapidly measure minute amounts of insulin is a major step toward developing the ability to assess the health of the body’s insulin-producing cells in real time.

Fasting during the month of Ramadan raises the risk of a rare type of stroke, according to research that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology 60th Anniversary Annual Meeting in Chicago, April 12–19, 2008.