Trophoblast stem cells (TSCs), cells found in the layer of peripheral embryonic stem cells from which the placenta is formed, are thought to exhibit "immune privilege" that aids cell survivability and is potentially beneficial for cell and gene therapies. Further, the survivability of TSCs has been thought to require the presence of ovarian hormones. However, none of these assumptions has ever been verified. This study, published in the current issue of the journal Cell Transplantation (18:7) - now freely available on-line at http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/ct - has demonstrated that it is the absence of male hormones, rather than the presence of female hormones, that allows extended transplanted cell survivability.

The coconut rhinoceros beetle (CRB) invasion, first detected in 2007, has been checked by the determined efforts of UOG scientists, Guam Department of Agriculture and the United States Department of Agriculture. "We've stopped the expected population explosion," says UOG entomologist Aubrey Moore, "due to the rapid response of the government of Guam and the federal government. The infestation has been contained to the northwest coast of the island, but we have yet to see a decrease in the population."

Since the completion of the human genome sequence, a question has baffled researchers studying gene control: How is it that humans, being far more complex than the lowly yeast, do not proportionally contain in our genome significantly more gene-control proteins?

Scientists widely accept that around 2.4 billion years ago, the Earth's atmosphere underwent a dramatic change when oxygen levels rose sharply. Called the "Great Oxidation Event" (GOE), the oxygen spike marks an important milestone in Earth's history, the transformation from an oxygen-poor atmosphere to an oxygen-rich one paving the way for complex life to develop on the planet.

Scientists in California are reporting development of a new generation of the microcapsules used in carbon-free copy paper, in which capsules burst and release ink with pressure from a pen. The new microcapsules burst when exposed to light, releasing their contents in ways that could have wide-ranging commercial uses from home and personal care to medicine. Their study appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, a weekly publication.

Dinosaurs may be the focus of much Cretaceous fossil hunting, but a Penn State researcher and his colleagues are hot on the trail of fossil plants in Patagonia, Argentina, thanks to a $1.57 million grant from the National Science Foundation as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have shown that adult stem cells from bone marrow can prevent acute lung injury in a mouse model of the disease.

An Australian method for assessing the environmental impact of marine fisheries has caught the eye of fishery management agencies worldwide.

Fossil land snail shells found in ancient soils on the subtropical eastern Canary Islands show that the Spanish archipelago off the northwest coast of Africa has become progressively drier over the past 50,000 years.

The Government of Nepal announced today an expansion of Bardia National Park in the Terai Arc Landscape by 900 sq km, which will increase critical habitat for tigers.

Prozac works wonders for some depressed people, but not for others. In some cases, patients derive little benefit and at worst, it can lead to bizarre hallucinations and fits of rage. Researchers and doctors remain puzzled as to what causes the wide range of reaction to Prozac and similar antidepressants.

Experiments led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have demonstrated that normally friendly ants can turn against each other by exploiting the chemical cues they use to distinguish colony-mates from rivals.

What do a West African drummer and a sperm whale have in common? According to some reports, they can both spot rhythms in the chatter of an ocean crowded with the calls of marine mammals -- a feat impossible for the untrained human ear.

For thousands of years, people have believed that eating large amounts of protein made it easier to build bigger, stronger muscles. Take Milo of Croton, the winner of five consecutive Olympic wrestling championships in the sixth century BC: If ancient writers are to be believed, he built his crushing strength in part by consuming 20 pounds of meat every day.

Sperm, and not just the fluid it bathes in, can transmit HIV to macrophages, T cells, and dendritic cells (DCs), report a team led by Ana Ceballos at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina. By infecting DCs, which carry the virus and potently pass it to T cells, sperm may play a leading role in spreading HIV. The article appears in the November 23, 2009 issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine (online October 26).

Cornell researchers have discovered a genetic mechanism in fruit flies that prevents two closely related species from reproducing, a finding that offers clues to how species evolve.

Genetically modified squash plants that are resistant to a debilitating viral disease become more vulnerable to a fatal bacterial infection, according to biologists.

Relatively minor increases in ocean acidity brought about by high levels of carbon dioxide have significant detrimental effects on the growth, development, and survival of hard clams, bay scallops, and Eastern oysters, according to researchers at Stony Brook University's School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. In one of the first studies looking at the effect of ocean acidification on shellfish, Stephanie Talmage, PhD candidate, and Professor Chris Gobler showed that the larval stages of these shellfish species are extremely sensitive to enhanced levels of carbon dioxide in seawater. Their work will be published in the November issue of the journal Limnology and Oceanography and is now online at http://www.aslo.org/lo/toc/vol_54/issue_6/index.html.

A Spanish researcher has analysed the preferences of wolves from the north east of the Iberian Peninsula to demonstrate that, in reality, their favourite prey are roe deer, deer and wild boar, ahead of domestic ruminants (sheep, goats, cows and horses).

A team of Harvard chemists led by X. Sunney Xie has developed a new microscopic technique for seeing, in color, molecules with undetectable fluorescence. The room-temperature technique allows researchers to identify previously unseen molecules in living organisms and offers broad applications in biomedical imaging and research.

Fragile X tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS) is a recently recognized condition, which is actually one of the most prevalent heritable neurodegenerative diseases. It is assumed that the condition is caused by deficiency for the protein Pur-alpha, which is essential for normal neural function. Structural studies undertaken by a team under the leadership of Dr. Dierk Niessing of the Helmholtz Zentrum München and the Gene Center at Ludwigs-Maximilians-University (LMU) have now determined the three-dimensional structure of Pur-alpha, and gained insights into the molecular function of the protein. The findings provide a possible basis for the development of an effective therapy for the disease.(PNAS Early Edition, 21. Oktober 2009)

More than half the people who take antidepressants for depression never get relief.

Born with a retinal disease that made him legally blind, and would eventually leave him totally sightless, the nine-year-old boy used to sit in the back of the classroom, relying on the large print on an electronic screen and assisted by teacher aides. Now, after a single injection of genes that produce light-sensitive pigments in the back of his eye, he sits in front with classmates and participates in class without extra help. In the playground, he joins his classmates in playing his first game of softball.

Perilous and polluting industrial processes can be made safer with enzymes. But only a short range of enzymes have been available for the chemical industry.

Groups of neurons that precisely keep time have been discovered in the primate brain by a team of researchers that includes Dezhe Jin, assistant professor of physics at Penn State University and two neuroscientists from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). "This research is the first time that precise time-keeping activities have been identified in recordings of neuron activity," Jin said. The time-keeping neurons are in two interconnected brain regions, the prefrontal cortex and the striatum, both of which are known to play critical roles in learning, movement, and thought control.

A study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has identified a key player in a molecular process essential for DNA replication within cells.

Two in five at-risk American adults who would benefit from vaccination against seasonal flu are missing out on the protective shots because they believe they do not need them and are not inclined to be vaccinated. And among those who say they do intend to take up the vaccine, nearly half get around to it, according to Dr. Katharine Harris from the RAND Corporation* in Arlington, USA, and her team. Their work (1) shows that asking simple questions about the intention to be protected against flu may be an effective way of identifying those patients who are likely to benefit from further information and discussion about the benefits of the vaccine, in order to increase its uptake. Their findings are published online this week in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, published by Springer.

Drugs based on engineered proteins represent a new frontier for pharmaceutical makers. Even after they discover a protein that may form the basis of the next wonder drug, however, they have to confront a long-standing problem: how to produce large quantities of the protein in a highly pure state. Now, a multi-institutional research team including a biochemist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) may have found* a new solution in an enzymatic "food processor" they can activate at will.

Highly active antiretroviral therapy has increased the longevity and quality of life for people living with human immunodeficiency virus. But it requires strict adherence in taking the medicine, something that is extremely difficult for many individuals to do.

With the 2009 influenza season upon us, characterization of the epidemiology and duration of shedding for the nH1N1 virus is critical. Investigators from the U.S. Air Force Academy and the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine Epidemiology Consult Service capitalized on a unique opportunity to gain valuable insights about the natural behavior of the nH1N1 virus, including shedding patterns, during a recent large-scale swine flu outbreak at the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA). Their results are reported in an article published online on October 20, 2009 by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. It is the first published study of its kind.

"2009 Deep Ocean Odyssey" will be held October 21, 2009 in Kristiansand, Norway from 12:00-15:00 Western European Time and live webcast at http://www.mar-eco.no/

Genetic information from an extinct species of bison preserved in permafrost for thousands of years could help improve modern agricultural livestock and breeding programs, according to University of Adelaide researchers.

Tsuruta et al. find that a lipid kinase directs a voltage-gated calcium channel's degradation to save neurons from a lethal dose of overexcitement. The study appears in the October 19, 2009 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology (www.jcb.org).

Over-expressing a gene that lets brain cells communicate just a fraction of a second longer makes a smarter rat, report researchers from the Medical College of Georgia and East China Normal University.

In a dramatic illustration of the power of emerging genetic technologies, Yale University researchers have reported making a clinical diagnosis for the first time using comprehensive DNA sequencing of all the protein-coding genes in the genome. The information changed the course of treatment of a baby boy suffering from symptoms of dehydration thousands of miles away in Turkey.

You can teach an old dog new tricks, say UCLA scientists who found that middle-aged and older adults with little Internet experience were able to trigger key centers in the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning after just one week of surfing the Web.

Eutrophication of the seas may have an impact on genetic variation in algae, research at the University of Gothenburg shows.

By directly manipulating the activity of individual neurons, scientists have given flies memories of a bad experience they never really had, according to a report in the October 16th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication.

Medical researchers have long suspected that obscure bacteria living within the intestinal tract may help keep the human immune system in balance. An international collaboration co-led by scientists at NYU Langone Medical Center has now identified a bizarre-looking microbial species that can single-handedly spur the production of specialized immune cells in mice.

An international research team has demonstrated that treating HIV-AIDS with interleukin-2 (IL-2) is ineffective. As a result, the researchers recommend that clinical trials on this compound be stopped. Their finding was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in an article co-authored by 14 researchers, including Dr. Jean-Pierre Routy of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC).