Clinicians have known for some time that people treated for HIV also become much more susceptible to diabetes and heart disease. A study by scientists at Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research has now shown some of the reasons why – enabling better patient management and monitoring.

Aucott et al. report the first in vivo experiments on the heterochromatin protein 1 (HP1) family, which sidles up to silent DNA. The results, to be published in the Nov. 17 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology, add to the evidence that the different versions of the proteins help cells fix broken DNA.

A "chip" or array that can quickly detect disorders such as Down syndrome or other diseases associated with chromosomal abnormalities proved an effective tool in prenatal diagnosis in a series of 300 cases at Baylor College of Medicine, said researchers in a report that appears in the current issue of the journal Prenatal Diagnosis.

Scientists have long known that life can exist in some very extreme environments. But Earth continues to surprise us.

Sleep helps the mind learn complicated tasks and helps people recover learning they otherwise thought they had forgotten over the course of a day, research at the University of Chicago shows.

New research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests cooling the brain may prevent the death of nerve cells that has been observed in infant mice exposed to anesthesia. The effects of anesthesia on human infants and young children have been debated among neuroscientists, but growing evidence suggests exposure to anesthetic drugs during brain development may contribute to behavioral and developmental delays.

Biologists at Washington University in St. Louis have made major headway in explaining a mechanism by which plant cells silence potentially harmful genes.