Researchers have discovered an enzyme crucial to a type of DNA repair that also causes resistance to a class of cancer drugs most commonly used against ovarian cancer.

Neuroscientists have long wondered how individual connections between brain cells remain diverse and "fit" enough for storing new memories. Reported in the prestigious science journal Neuron, a new study led by Dr. Inna Slutsky of the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University describes what makes some memories stick.

An Australian scientist has discovered what could be the world's rarest coral in the remote North Pacific Ocean.

A new article in press of the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters unveils groundbreaking research on the hydrothermal formation of Clay-Carbonate rocks in the Nili Fossae region of Mars. The findings may provide a link to evidence of living organisms on Mars, roughly 4 billion years ago in the Noachian period.

Some trees growing in nutrient-poor forest soil may get what they need by cultivating specific root microbes to create compounds they require. These microbes are exceptionally efficient at turning inorganic minerals into nutrients that the trees can use. Researchers from France report their findings in the July 2010 issue of the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Researchers have long known that humans lack a key enzyme -- one possessed by most of the animal kingdom and even plants -- that reverses severe sun damage.

Australian and international researchers have collected venom from octopuses in Antarctica for the first time, significantly advancing our understanding of the properties of venom as a potential resource for drug-development.

An international team of scientists has been exploring Moreton Bay, close to Brisbane, as a possible 'lifeboat' to save corals from the Great Barrier Reef at risk of extermination under climate change.

Every day, millions of microorganisms reach Spain from the Sahara Desert and the Sahel region – by flying. Louis Pasteur demonstrated back in 1861 that germs can move through the air, but it was only recently discovered that bacteria, funguses and viruses can travel thousands of kilometers stuck onto dust particles. Satellite images show clouds that come close to the size of the Iberian Peninsula. For the first time, the international team on the Ecosensor project, funded by the BBVA Foundation, have analyzed these traveling microorganisms using molecular biology techniques. As well as identifying the species, they have found that they colonize high-mountain lakes in the Sierra Nevada and the Pyrenees, and that the phenomenon is escalating with climate change.

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) believe they may have found a new treatment for retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a severe neurodegenerative disease of the retina that ultimately results in blindness. One of the more common retinal degenerative diseases, RP is caused by the death of photoreceptor cells and affects 1 in 4,000 people in the United States. RP typically manifests in young adulthood as night blindness or a loss of peripheral vision and in many cases progresses to legal blindness by age 40.

General aptitude tests and specific mental ability tests are important tools for vocational guidance. Researchers are now asking whether performance on such tests is based on differences in brain structure, and if so, can brain scans be helpful in choosing a career? In a first step, researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Research Notes have investigated how well eight tests used in vocational guidance correlate to gray matter in areas throughout the brain.

A clinical trial in Cambodia has found it possible to prolong the survival of untreated HIV-infected adults with very weak immune systems and newly diagnosed tuberculosis (TB) by starting anti-HIV therapy two weeks after beginning TB treatment, rather than waiting eight weeks, as has been standard. This finding by scientists co-funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and the French National Agency for Research on AIDS and Viral Hepatitis, brings physicians closer to optimizing the treatment of severely immunosuppressed individuals with HIV-TB co-infection. The findings were presented today at the XVIII International AIDS Conference in Vienna by principal investigators Francois-Xavier Blanc, M.D., Anne E. Goldfeld, M.D., and Sok Thim, M.D.

Scientists have identified key genes responsible for a severe inflammatory disease that has spread along the old silk trading routes from the Far East to the edge of Europe.

To trap and hold tiny microparticles, engineers at Harvard have "put a ring on it," using a silicon-based circular resonator to confine particles stably for up to several minutes.

Specialized brain training targeted at the regions of a rat's brain that process sound reversed many aspects of normal, age-related cognitive decline and improved the health of the brain cells, according to a new study from researchers at University of California, San Francisco.

Scientists, practitioners and advocates from around the world today made a united call for global leaders to commit at least $US20 billion to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria at its upcoming replenishment meeting in October. Because the level of replenishment committed at the meeting will determine the Global Fund's grant levels for 2011-2013, the meeting is widely viewed as the critical next step towards universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support.

The International AIDS Society (IAS) announced today the ten winners of four prestigious scientific awards, to be presented at plenary sessions during the XVIII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2010). Presented by the IAS and partners, these awards recognize scientists involved in innovative HIV and AIDS research throughout the world. "The quality of work represented by the 2010 awardees is remarkable," said IAS President Julio Montaner. "The IAS hopes to draw the world's attention to these individuals and to their significant scientific accomplishments, as well as to the continued need for innovation in all of the major areas of HIV and AIDS research, represented by the six conference programme tracks."

UC Davis biomedical engineer Prof. Alexander Revzin has developed a "lab on a chip" device for HIV testing. Revzin's microfluidic device uses antibodies to "capture" white blood cells called T cells that are affected by HIV. In addition to physically binding these cells the test detects the types and levels of inflammatory proteins (cytokines) released by the cells.

In the battle between insect predators and their prey, chemical signals called kairomones serve as an early-warning system. Pervasively emitted by the predators, the compounds are detected by their prey, and can even trigger adaptations, such a change in body size or armor, that help protect the prey. But as widespread as kairomones are in the insect world, their chemical identity has remained largely unknown. New research by Rockefeller University's Joel E. Cohen and colleagues at the University of Haifa in Israel has identified two compounds emitted by mosquito predators that make the mosquitoes less inclined to lay eggs in pools of water. The findings, published in the July issue of Ecology Letters, may provide new environmentally friendly tactics for repelling and controlling disease-carrying insects.

Starting Monday, July 19 through Tuesday, July 27, 2010, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation will conduct a scientific coral reef survey in Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles. The main objective of this project is to reevaluate coral sites previously studied by the Foundation in order to produce management decision aids and tools needed by resource managers and other stakeholders in Bonaire to achieve effective coral reef conservation results.

When paleontologist Iyad Zalmout went looking for fossil whales and dinosaurs in Saudi Arabia, he never expected to come face-to-face with a significant, early primate fossil.

It would make the perfect question for the popular television show "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader:" What parts of the eye allow us to see?

Scientists are reporting discovery of a way to help proteins such as the new generation of protein-based drugs -- sometimes heralded as tomorrow's potential "miracle cures" -- get past the biochemical "Entrance Forbidden" barrier that keeps them from entering cells and doing their work. The new technique, described in the monthly journal, ACS Chemical Biology, represents a new use for an engineered form of green fluorescent protein, the topic of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry that is one of the most important research tools in biosciences.

Using molecular techniques, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and collaborating scientists have shown how the subversion of a single gene in wheat by two fungal foes triggers a kind of cellular suicide in the grain crop's leaves.

A landmark study by Florida State University biologists, in collaboration with scientists in Britain, is the first to identify a life-or-death "cell competition" process in mammalian tissue that suppresses cancer by causing cancerous cells to kill themselves.

An estimated 5 percent of the Key West, Fla., population – over 1,000 people – showed evidence of recent exposure to dengue virus in 2009, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Florida Department of Health.

In the largest study of its kind, researchers at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (SFBR) have found that exposure to cigarette smoke can alter gene expression -- the process by which a gene's information is converted into the structures and functions of a cell. These alterations in response to smoking appear to have a wide-ranging negative influence on the immune system, and a strong involvement in processes related to cancer, cell death and metabolism.

Italian scientists pioneering a new gene transfer treatment for the blood disorder β-thalassemia have successfully completed preclinical trials, claiming they can correct the lack of beta-globin (ß-globin) in patients' blood cells which causes the disease. The research, published in EMBO Molecular Medicine, reveals how gene therapy may represent a safe alternative to current cures that are limited to a minority of patients.

Farmed fish are an increasingly important food source, with a global harvest now at 110 million tons and growing at more than 8 percent a year. But epidemics of infectious disease threaten this vital industry, including one of its most popular products: farmed Atlantic salmon. Perhaps even more worrisome: these infections can spread to wild fish coming in close proximity to marine pens and fish escaping from them.

On the long and difficult road toward a carbon-neutral source of transportation fuels, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is pursuing a diversified approach. This effort involves exploring a range of potential new fuel sources in nature: from plants that may serve as cellulosic feedstocks—fast-growing trees and perennial grasses on land—to oil-producing organisms in aquatic and other environments, such as algae and bacteria.

A new collection of some of North America's hottest foods—an eclectic range of New World chili peppers—were delivered to the cool Arctic Circle environs of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault this week, where their exotic tongue-scorching qualities can be kept safe for centuries.

One of the characteristics of embryonic stem cells is their ability to form unusual tumors called teratomas. These tumors, which contain a mixture of cells from a variety of tissues and organs of the body, are typically benign. But they present a major obstacle to the development of human embryonic stem cell therapies that seek to treat a variety of human ailments such as Parkinson's, diabetes, genetic blood disorders and spinal cord injuries.

The mammalian fucose mutarotase enzyme is known to be involved in incorporating the sugar fucose into protein. Female mice that lack the fucose mutarotase (FucM) gene refuse to let males mount them, and will attempt copulation with other female mice. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Genetics created the FucM mouse mutants in order to investigate the role of this enzyme in vivo.

UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found a compound that preserves newly created brain cells and boosts learning and memory in an animal study.

In a fascinating example of vocal mimicry, researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and UFAM (Federal University of Amazonas) have documented a wild cat species imitating the call of its intended victim: a small, squirrel-sized monkey known as a pied tamarin. This is the first recorded instance of a wild cat species in the Americas mimicking the calls of its prey.

A specific and remarkably small fragment of RNA appears to protect rats against cocaine addiction—and may also protect humans, according to a recent study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a component of the National Institutes of Health. The study was published today in the journal Nature.

Scientists have discovered two potent human antibodies that can stop more than 90 percent of known global HIV strains from infecting human cells in the laboratory, and have demonstrated how one of these disease-fighting proteins accomplishes this feat. According to the scientists, these antibodies could be used to design improved HIV vaccines, or could be further developed to prevent or treat HIV infection. Moreover, the method used to find these antibodies could be applied to isolate therapeutic antibodies for other infectious diseases as well.

University of Adelaide researchers are investigating the use of ultrasound as an environmentally friendly and cheaper alternative to controlling blue-green algae in our fresh water supplies.

Faced with threats such as habitat loss and climate change, thousands of rare flowering plant species worldwide may become extinct before scientists can even discover them, according to a paper published today by a trio of American and British researchers in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Imagine being able to drop a toothpick on the head of one particular person standing among 100,000 people in a stadium. It sounds impossible, yet this degree of precision at the cellular level has been demonstrated by researchers affiliated with the Johns Hopkins University Institute for NanoBioTechnology. Their study was published online in June in Nature Nanotechnology.