A probiotic bacterium, Lactobacillus plantarum 299, has been used to out-compete the dangerous bacteria that cause respiratory illness in ventilated patients. Research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Critical Care describes how applying a bacterial solution in place of normal antiseptics is effective in preventing the most common cause of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP).

How 'molecular machines' inside cells swing into action to activate genes at different times in a cell's life is revealed today (6 November) in new research published in Molecular Cell.

Bruce Willis, Marilyn Monroe, and Carly Simon all suffered from stuttering. Today, three million Americans do, too. Most are able to overcome the handicap, which afflicts 5% of all children ― but childhood suffering from stuttering can be traumatic, producing educational, social, and occupational disadvantages.

Immune cells known as eosinophils have a central role in causing asthma. Now, a team of researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, has developed approaches to noninvasively visualize in real-time eosinophil responses in the lungs and airways of mice with a disease that mimics asthma (experimental allergic airway inflammation); they hope that these approaches might be developed to help assess the efficacy of treatments (both old and new) for the disease.

Sea snakes may slither in saltwater, but they sip the sweet stuff.

UC Davis Cancer Center researchers have discovered a metabolic deficiency in pancreatic cancer cells that can be used to slow the progress of the deadliest of all cancers.