An international group of researchers has identified the genetic cause of an inherited condition that causes severe fetal abnormalities.

Scientists have taken another important step toward understanding just how sticking needles into the body can ease pain.

When the first warm rays of springtime sunshine trigger a burst of new plant growth, it's almost as if someone flicked a switch to turn on the greenery and unleash a floral profusion of color. Opening a window into this process, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborators at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, have deciphered the structure of a molecular "switch" much like the one plants use to sense light. Their findings, described online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of May 31, 2010, help explain how the switch works and could be used to design new ways to modify plant growth.

University of Michigan scientists have provided the most detailed picture yet of a key receptor in the brain that influences the effectiveness of serotonin-related antidepressants, such as Prozac.

Genetic abnormalities are most often discussed in terms of differences so miniscule they are actually called "snips" — changes in a single unit along the 3 billion that make up the entire string of human DNA.

The Rice University-led international journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (ET&C) this week released a special free virtual edition that makes available 25 previously released full studies on the Exxon Valdez oil spill. It also provides access to abstracts of more than 70 oil-related science studies published over the publication's 29-year history. The special online edition is available at http://www.setacjournals.org/view/0/virtualissueoilspills.html.

Trying to stay ahead of a deadly disease that has wiped out more than 100 species, scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute continue to discover new frog species in Panama: Pristimantis educatoris, from Omar Torrijos National Park, and P. adnus from Darien Province near the Colombian border.

An active compound from fungi and lower animals may well be suitable as an effective weapon against dangerous bacteria. We're talking about plectasin, a small protein molecule that can even destroy highly resistant bacteria . Researchers at the Universities of Bonn, Utrecht, Aalborg and of the Danish company Novozymes AS have shed light on how the substance does this. The authors see plectasin as a promising lead compound for new antibiotics.

The polyps of the new gorgonia discovered, Tauroprimnoa austasensis and Digitogorgia kuekenthali, in the region of Austasen, in the Eastern Weddell Sea, and to the south-east of the Falklands and Isla Nueve (in Chilean Patagonia) respectively, are small and elongated. Both species stand out for the number, shape and layout of the scales of calcium carbonate that cover the polyps, and for the type of ramification of the colonies.

Researchers in Germany have used a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique called continuous arterial spin labeling (CASL) to map cerebral blood flow patterns in schizophrenic patients quickly and without using radiation or contrast agents. Their findings appear in the online edition and July printed issue of the journal Radiology.

A study by researchers at the University of Toronto and the Royal Ontario Museum sheds new light on a previously unclassifiable 500 million-year-old squid-like carnivore known as Nectocaris pteryx.

The use of modified measles virus may represent a new treatment for a childhood brain tumor known as medulloblastoma, according to a new study appearing in Neuro-Oncology.

Researchers working with Professor Gudrun Rappold, Director of the Department of Molecular Human Genetics at Heidelberg University Hospital, have discovered previously unknown mutations in autistic and mentally impaired patients in what is known as the SHANK2 gene, a gene that is partially responsible for linking nerve cells. However, a single gene mutation is not always enough to trigger the illness. In some cases, a certain threshold of mutation must be exceeded. The researchers conclude from their results that a correct inner structure of the nerve cell synapses is necessary to enable the normal development of language, social competence, and cognitive capacity. Essential for the success of the project were the studies by the Heidelberg research team with the doctoral student Simone Berkel and collaboration with a Canadian research team headed by Steve Scherer. The study has already been published online in the leading scientific journal Nature Genetics.

The risk of acquiring HIV through unprotected anal sex is at least 20 times greater than with unprotected vaginal sex and increases if other infections are already present in the rectal lining. Could the use of lubricants – at least certain kinds – be another risk factor among men and women who engage in receptive anal intercourse? Two studies presented today at the International Microbicides Conference in Pittsburgh, suggest the answer is yes.

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School report in the journal Nature Medicine on a cellular pathway in the deadly brain cancer malignant glioma, a pathway essential to the cancer's ability to grow – and a potential target for therapy that would stop the cancer's ability to thrive.

Writing in the International Journal of Nanoparticles, Rani Pattabi and colleagues at Mangalore University, explain how blasting silver nitrate solution with an electron beam can generate nanoparticles that are more effective at killing all kinds of bacteria, including gram-negative species that are not harmed by conventional antibacterial agents.

The Motor Neurone Disease Association is funding its first ever stem cell research programme to help unlock the secrets of this fatal, neurological condition.

The probiotic yogurt-like drink DanActive reduced the rate of common sicknesses such as ear infections, sinusitis, the flu and diarrhea in daycare children, say researchers who studied the drink in the largest known probiotic clinical trial to be conducted in the United States. An additional finding, however, showed no reduction in the number school days missed. The study led by Daniel Merenstein of Georgetown University School of Medicine (GUSOM), was funded by The Dannon Company, Inc., and published today online in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew's top propagation 'code-breaker', horticulturist Carlos Magdalena, has cracked the enigma of growing a rare species of African waterlily – believed to be the smallest waterlily in the world with pads than can be as little as 1cm in diameter – bringing it back from the brink of extinction; a fitting success story to celebrate International Day for Biological Diversity on 22 May 2010.

Sequencing DNA could get a lot faster and cheaper – and thus closer to routine use in clinical diagnostics – thanks to a new method developed by a research team based at Boston University. The team has demonstrated the first use of solid state nanopores — tiny holes in silicon chips that detect DNA molecules as they pass through the pore — to read the identity of the four nucleotides that encode each DNA molecule. In addition, the researchers have shown the viability of a novel, more efficient method to detect single DNA molecules in nanopores.

Researchers from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford, Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and National University Health System (NUHS) have identified new genetic variants that increase susceptibility to several infectious diseases including tuberculosis and malaria.

German scientist Andre Koch from the Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig in Bonn together with his supervisor Dr. Wolfgang Boehme and another colleague have described two new monitor lizard species and one new subspecies from the Philippines in a recent article. The species descriptions were published in Zootaxa, the world's foremost journal for taxonomic zoology.

The sepals of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana—commonly known as the mouse-eared cress—are characterized by an outer layer of cells that vary widely in their sizes, and are distributed in equally varied patterns and proportions.

Researchers at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR) and the Royal Brisbane Women's Hospital have identified a previously undiagnosed condition and successfully treated it by performing an experimental stem cell transplant.

Scientists at Duke University Medical School and Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found a new role for a host protein that provides further insight into how CD8+ T cells work to control HIV and other infections. Study authors say the finding may yield new strategies for prevention or treatment.

A mass extinction of fish 360 million years ago hit the reset button on Earth's life, setting the stage for modern vertebrate biodiversity, a new study reports.

People who live in urban areas where particulate air pollution is high tend to have higher blood pressure than those who live in less polluted areas, according to researchers from the University of Dusiburg-Essen in Germany.

A precise understanding of cellular growth and movement is the key to developing new treatments for cancer and other disorders caused by dysfunctional cell behavior. Recent breakthroughs in genetic medicine have uncovered how genes control whether cellular proteins are turned 'on' or 'off' at the molecular level, but much remains to be understood about how protein signaling influences cell behavior.

Five times the tensile strength of steel and triple that of the currently best synthetic fibers: Spider silk is a fascinating material. But no one has thus far succeeded in producing the super fibers synthetically. How do spiders form long, highly stable and elastic fibers from the spider silk proteins stored in the silk gland within split seconds? Scientists from the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) and the University of Bayreuth have now succeeded in unraveling the secret. They present their results in the current issue of the prestigious scientific journal Nature.

New research suggests that a brain system called the mirror neuron system, previously implicated as being dysfunctional in autism appears to function normally in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The study, published by Cell Press in the May 13 issue of the journal Neuron, argues that difficulties in social communication experienced by individuals with ASD are caused by neural abnormalities other than a mirror neuron system dysfunction.

Is breast milk so different from infant formula? The ability to track which genes are operating in an infant's intestine has allowed University of Illinois scientists to compare the early development of breast-fed and formula-fed babies. They say the difference is very real.

Three researchers who are recipients of a collaborative grant from the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation have developed a new type of drug designed to kill non-Hodgkin lymphoma tumor cells. The breakthrough could lead to potential non-toxic therapies for cancer patients. The Foundation-funded investigators include Ari Melnick, M.D., of Weill Cornell Medical College, Alexander MacKerell, Ph.D., of the University of Maryland and Gilbert Privé, Ph.D., of the University of Toronto. The researchers, who published their findings in the April issue of Cancer Cell, have identified a drug that targets an oncogene known as BCL6.

People living in neighbourhoods where they perceived traffic made it unpleasant to walk were more likely to have a higher BMI than those who didn't, according to a new University of Alberta study looking at the relationship between the built environment , socio-economic status (SES), and changes in body mass index (BMI) over a six year period.

There is a simple rule of thumb. The larger an animal is, the more time it spends eating. This means an elephant hardly has time to sleep. It spends 18 hours every day satisfying its huge appetite. 'This led us to one of the many riddles that gigantism of dinosaurs puts before us,' Professor Martin Sander from the University of Bonn explains. 'They were just so large that a day would have had to have 30 hours so that they were able to meet their energy demands.'

The European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) is launched today, consolidating three major sequence resources to become Europe's primary access point to globally comprehensive DNA and RNA sequence information. The ENA is freely available from the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), a part of European Molecular Biology Laboratory.

An Arizona State University graduate student, Jinglin Fu, in collaboration with Biodesign Institute researchers Neal Woodbury and Stephen Albert Johnston, has pioneered a technique that improves on scientists' ability to harness and modulate enzyme activity.

Researchers have found that a 150 million year old "dinobird" fossil, long thought to contain nothing but fossilized bone and rock, has been hiding remnants of the animal's original chemistry. Using the bright X-ray beam of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, located at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, an international team of paleontologists, geochemists and physicists has revealed this transformative glimpse into one of the most important fossils ever discovered: the Archaeopteryx, a half-dinosaur/half-bird species.

Proteins called cohesins ensure that newly copied chromosomes bind together, separate correctly during cell division, and are repaired efficiently after DNA damage. Scientists at the Carnegie Institution have found for the first time that cohesins are needed in different concentrations for their different functions. This discovery helps to explain how certain developmental disorders, such as Cornelia de Lange and Roberts Syndrome arise without affecting cell division essential to development. The research was made possible by a new technique developed by the scientists for membrane-bound cells (called eukaryotes), which enables scientists to gradually reduce the concentration of a protein in living cells. The paper, published on line May 6, and in the May 25, 2010, print edition of Current Biology, opens the door to a better understanding of developmental disorders and to the study of other proteins with multiple functions.

The Wildlife Conservation Society announced the results of the first-ever evaluation of a large, "landscape-wide" conservation approach to protect globally important populations of elephants and great apes.

Researchers have produced the first whole genome sequence of the 3 billion letters in the Neanderthal genome, and the initial analysis suggests that up to 2 percent of the DNA in the genome of present-day humans outside of Africa originated in Neanderthals or in Neanderthals' ancestors.