Viruses have numerous tricks for dodging the immune system. In the September 7, 2009 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology, Stagg et al. reveal a key detail in one of these stratagems, identifying a protein that enables cyto¬megalovirus to shut down an antiviral defense (online August 31).

The drywood termite, Cryptotermes secundus, eavesdrops on its more aggressive subterranean competitor, Coptotermes acinaciformis, to avoid contact with it, according to scientists from CSIRO Entomology and the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy.

German scientists have identified a serious and previously misunderstood contaminant that brings the safety and efficacy of intravenous treatments into question. In a report published in the September 2009 issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology (http://www.jleukbio.org), they show how a common intravenous treatment used to boost blood pressure in ailing patients also contains substances called "advanced glycation end products," which trigger inflammation. These substances result from reactions that occur among the various proteins (called "posttranslational modification") within the intravenous fluid after it has been formulated for use. This study directly challenges today's prevalent belief that advanced glycation end products are not contaminants.

Fast growing transgenic fish can revolutionise commercial fish farming and relieve the pressure on overexploited fish stocks. But what happens in the natural environment if transgenic fish escape? Researchers at the University of Gothenburg have studied transgenic fish on behalf of the EU and are urging caution: -Until further notice transgenic fish should be bred in closed systems on land, says Fredrik Sundström at the Department of Zoology, University of Gothenburg.

In the chilling science fiction movie Gattaca, Ethan Hawke stars as a man with "inferior genes" who assumes another's genetic identity to escape a dead-end future. The 1997 film illustrates the very real fear swirling around today's genome research — fear that private genetic information could be used negatively against us.

Travelers to the neotropics—the tropical lands of the Americas—might be forgiven for thinking that all of the colorful insects flittering over sunny puddles or among dense forest understory are butterflies. In fact, many are not. Some are moths that have reinvented themselves as butterflies, converging on the daytime niche typically dominated by their less hairy relatives. Now, a new revision of the taxonomic relationships among one such group of insects, the subfamily Dioptinae, sheds light on the diversity of tropical moth species and presents a unique story of parallel evolution.

After two years of research over five degraded landscapes in the National Park of Sierra Nevada (Granada), scientists have established for the first time that field mice base their diet on holm oak and pine seeds, causing a deterioration of the habitats and an extension of scrubland in the forests.

A specific genetic region that has been increasingly identified as the strongest genetic link to psoriasis has an even more significant role in the chronic skin disease than has been suspected, University of Utah medical researchers show in a new study.

A toxic cocktail of ultrafine particles is lurking inside road tunnels in concentration levels so high they have the potential to harm drivers and passengers, a new study has found.

Variants in just three genes acting in different combinations account for the wide range of coat textures seen in dogs — from the poodle's tight curls to the beagle's stick-straight fur. A team led by researchers from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health, reports these findings today in the advance online issue of the journal Science.

Scientific dogma has long asserted that females are born with their entire lifetime's supply of eggs, and once they're gone, they're gone. New findings by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, published online Aug. 27 in Science, suggest that in nematode worms, at least, this does not hold true.

In a vivid illustration of natural selection at work, scientists at Harvard University have found that deer mice living in Nebraska's Sand Hills quickly evolved lighter coloration after glaciers deposited sand dunes atop what had been much darker soil. The work is described this week in the journal Science.

The mainstay immune system protein TRAF6 plays an unexpected, key role activating a cell signaling molecule that in mutant form is associated with cancer growth, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report in the Aug. 28 edition of Science.

In a new study, researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (The Neuro), McGill University have found an important mechanism involved in setting up the vast communications network of connections in the brain.

Known for their wide variety of vibrant plumage, birds have evolved various chemical and physical mechanisms to produce these beautiful colors over millions of years.

For the first time, Whitehead Institute researchers have shown definitively that mutations associated with prion diseases are sufficient to cause a transmissible neurodegenerative disease.

A novel electronic sensor array for more rapid, accurate and cost-efficient testing of DNA for disease diagnosis and biological research has been developed by scientists at Singapore's Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN).

For over a century, scientists have been using electrical stimulation to explore and treat the human brain. The technique has helped identify regions responsible for specific neural functions—for instance, the motor cortex and pleasure center—and has been used to treat a variety of conditions from Parkinson's disease to depression. Yet no one has been able to see what actually happens at the cellular level when the brain is electrically prodded.

In new animal research done by investigators at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, scientists have discovered a treatment effective in mice at blocking the growth and shrinking the size of lung cancer tumors, one of the leading causes of cancer death in the world.

The world's last remaining "pristine" forest – the boreal forest across large stretches of Russia, Canada and other northern countries – is under increasing threat, a team of international researchers has found.

Love songs aren't only for soft rock FM stations – they're also used by romantic bats, and researchers at Texas A&M University and the University of Texas at Austin are believed to be the first to decode the mysterious love sounds made by the winged creatures. Their work is published in the current issue of PloS One (Public Library of Science).

Victorian stem cell scientists from Monash University have modified a human embryonic stem cell (hESC) line to glow red when the stem cells become red blood cells.

Parkinson's disease is caused by the degeneration of neurons in the midbrain. The mechanisms leading to the loss of these neurons, however, are largely unknown. Recent research revealed that about ten per cent of cases are caused by defects in so-called Parkinson-associated genes. Furthermore, mitochondria, the cellular powerhouses, seem to play a major role. New results from researchers at the LMU Munich under the lead of associate professor Dr. Konstanze Winklhofer and Professor Christian Haass connect both phenomena, showing that two Parkinson genes maintain the function of mitochondria. "Diseases like Parkinson's where at least some cases are unambiguously related to the dysfunction of specific genes offer a promising research opportunity," explains biochemist Dr. Konstanze Winklhofer "When we understand the function of these genes, we can learn a lot about the causes of the disease, its progress and possible new therapies." Professor Wolfgang Wurst and his group of the Institute for Developmental Genetics at the Helmholtz Center Munich also contributed to this work. (Journal of Biological Chemistry, 21 August, 2009)

They gracefully swim through the complete darkness of submarine caves, constantly on the lookout for prey. Instead of eyes, predatory crustaceans of the class Remipedia rely on long antennae which search the lightless void in all directions. Like some type of science fiction monster, their head is equipped with powerful prehensile limbs and poisonous fangs.

People who use smokeless tobacco products like snus have a slightly higher risk of having a fatal heart attack or stroke, according to research published on bmj.com today.

A blood test can now be used to detect brain damage in amateur boxers. Deterioration of nerve cells seems to occur even after a two-month break from boxing. This is shown in a new study from the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

One of the biggest challenges in scientists' quest to develop new and better treatments for cancer is gaining a better understanding of how and why cancer spreads. Recent breakthroughs have uncovered how different cellular proteins are turned 'on' or 'off' at the molecular level, but much remains to be understood about how protein signaling influences cell behavior.

A team of scientists led by CSIRO's Dr Kishore Prayaga has been awarded a prestigious Australian Museum Eureka Prize for its work to develop a simple genetic test which has the potential to end the need to dehorn cattle in Australia.

There is no known cure for neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington's, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. But new hope, in the form of stem cells created from the patient's own bone marrow, can be found ― and literally seen ― in laboratories at Tel Aviv University.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 18, 2009 — Scientists have used a new vaccine production technology to develop a vaccine for norovirus, a dreaded cause of diarrhea and vomiting that may be the second most common viral infection in the United States after the flu. Sometimes called the "cruise ship virus," this microbe can spread like wildfire through passenger liners, schools, offices and military bases.

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have found that the activity of a protein in brain cells helps stimulate the spread of an aggressive brain cancer called glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). In a move toward therapy, the researchers showed that a small designer protein can block this activity and reduce the spreading of GBM cells grown in the laboratory.

The nation's home foreclosure epidemic may be taking its toll on Americans' health as well as their wallets. Nearly half of people studied while undergoing foreclosure reported depressive symptoms, and 37 percent met screening criteria for major depression, according to new University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine research published online this week in the American Journal of Public Health. Many also reported an inability to afford prescription drugs, and skipping meals. The authors say their findings should serve as a call for policy makers to tie health interventions into their response to the nation's ongoing housing crisis.

New research at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston suggests that ancient Chinese herbal formulas used primarily for cardiovascular indications including heart disease may produce large amounts of artery-widening nitric oxide. Findings of the preclinical study by scientists in the university's Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases (IMM) appear in the Sept. 15 print issue of the journal Free Radical Biology & Medicine.

Using tiny crystals called quantum dots, Johns Hopkins researchers have developed a highly sensitive test to look for DNA attachments that often are early warning signs of cancer.

University of Washington (UW) researchers have successfully developed a novel genome-analysis strategy for more rapid, lower cost discovery of possible gene-disease links. By saving time and lowering expenses, the approach makes it feasible for scientists to search for disease-causing genes in people with the same inherited disorder but without any family ties to each other.

"A biologist, a physicist, and a nanotechnologist walk into a ..." sounds like the start of a joke. Instead, it was the start of a collaboration that has helped to decipher a critical, but so far largely unstudied, phase of how cells divide. Errors in cell division can cause mutations that lead to cancer, and this study could shed light on the role of chromosome abnormalities in uncontrolled cell replication.

Prevention of H1N1 influenza virus through vaccination must be our top priority if disease patterns in the northern hemisphere follow those in the southern hemisphere this fall, writes Paul Hébert, Editor-in-Chief of CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) in an editorial http://www.cmaj.ca/press/cmaj091426.pdf (www.cmaj.ca).

NASA scientists have discovered glycine, a fundamental building block of life, in samples of comet Wild 2 returned by NASA's Stardust spacecraft.

With the help of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and molecular engineering, researchers have designed synthetic protein-like mimics convincing enough to interrupt unwanted biological conversations between cells.

Researchers at the University of Leeds have discovered a previously unknown mechanism that allows the hepatitis C virus (HCV) to remain in the body for decades.