'Living fossil' tree contains genetic imprints of rain forests under climate change

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ANN ARBOR, Mich.---A "living fossil" tree species is helping a University of Michigan researcher understand how tropical forests responded to past climate change and how they may react to global warming in the future.

The research appears in the November issue of the journal Evolution.

Personality shapes perception of romance, but doesn't tell the whole story

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Personality researchers have long known that people who report they have certain personality traits are also more (or less) likely to be satisfied with their romantic partners. Someone who says she is often anxious or moody, for example, is more likely than her less neurotic counterpart to be dissatisfied with her significant other.

Vigorous activity protects against breast cancer

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Normal-weight women who carry out lots of vigorous exercise are approximately 30% less likely to develop breast cancer than those who don't exercise vigorously. A study of more than thirty thousand postmenopausal American women, reported in BioMed Central's open access journal Breast Cancer Research, has revealed that a sedentary lifestyle can be a risk factor for the disease – even in women who are not overweight.

24-hour drinking linked to shift in hospital attendance patterns

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Since the UK's move to 24-hour drinking, a large city centre hospital in Birmingham has seen an increase in drink-related attendances between the hours of 3am and 6am. A new study, published in the open access journal BMC Public Health, shows no significant decrease in alcohol-related attendances after 24-hour drinking was introduced but a significant shift in the time of attendances.

Dramatic fall in malaria in the Gambia raises possibility of elimination in parts of Africa

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The incidence of malaria has fallen significantly in The Gambia in the last 5 years, according to a study carried out by experts there with support from scientists based in London.

The findings from the study, which was funded by the UK Medical Research Council, appear in today's Lancet, and raise the possibility of eliminating malaria as a public health problem in parts of Africa.

Dramatic fall in number of malaria deaths along Kenyan coast

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A study out today shows a dramatic fall in the number of people dying from malaria infection in coastal Kenya. The research, funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), highlights the importance of the prevention and rapid treatment of malaria infection in preventing a potential resurgence of the disease.

Pre-election surveys show deep concern about state of health care

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With only a few days remaining before Election Day, researchers from Harvard School of Public Health and the Kaiser Family Foundation, writing for the November 6, 2008, New England Journal of Medicine, find that seven in ten registered voters say major changes are needed in the U.S. health care system.

Drinking milk to ease milk allergy?

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Giving children with milk allergies increasingly higher doses of milk over time may ease, and even help them completely overcome, their allergic reactions, according to the results of a study led by the Johns Hopkins Children's Center and conducted jointly with Duke University.

Type-1 diabetes not so much bad genes as good genes behaving badly, Stanford research shows

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STANFORD, Calif. — Investigators combing the genome in the hope of finding genetic variants responsible for triggering early-onset diabetes may be looking in the wrong place, new research at the Stanford University School of Medicine suggests.

Early-onset diabetes, also known as type-1 diabetes, is an autoimmune disease, caused when the immune system attacks and destroys insulin-producing cells in a person's pancreas.

Studies of small water fleas help ecologists understand population dynamics

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(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– A study of populations of tiny water fleas is helping ecologists to understand population dynamics, which may lead to predictions about the ecological consequences of environmental change.

The study is published in today's issue of the journal Nature. The water flea, called Daphnia, plays a key role in the food web of many lakes.