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Considered "biodiversity reservoirs," underwater caves are yet to be explored with only a few thoroughly researched areas in the world. Furthermore, species diversity and distributional data is currently scattered enough to seriously hinder conservation status assessments, which is of urgent need due to planned and uncontrolled coastal urbanization.

Throughout the growing season seemingly benign clouds pass over millions of acres of crops, causing rapid fluctuations in light intensity and inadvertently robbing these plants of their productivity--this costs us untold bushels of potential yield. In a recent study, researchers used a rapid screening technique that genetically engineers plants--in real time--to investigate how to help plants realize their full potential.

Scientists have developed a method of allowing materials, commonly used in aircraft and satellites, to self-heal cracks at temperatures well below freezing.

The paper, published in Royal Society Open Science, is the first to show that self-healing materials can be manipulated to operate at very low temperatures (-60°C).

Efforts to weaken the al Qa'ida-linked terrorist group al Shabaab in Somalia have had some success over the past five years, but the U.S. campaign there is now in jeopardy, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

Al Shabaab may resurge if urgent steps are not taken to address the political, economic and governance challenges at the heart of the conflict, researchers say.

Researchers at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Bellvitge (IDIBELL), led by Dr. Eva Gonzalez-Suarez, have shown that pharmacological and genetic inhibition of signaling pathway RANK / RANKL leads to a significant reduction in recurrences and metastases in breast cancer in a mouse animal model. Their findings, published in Cancer Research, suggest that RANK inhibitors currently used in patients with osteoporosis and bone metastases may have potential for treating breast cancer.

School sex education is often negative, heterosexist, and out of touch, and taught by poorly trained, embarrassed teachers, finds a synthesis of the views and experiences of young people in different countries, published in the online journal BMJ Open.

Schools' failure to acknowledge that sex education is a special subject with unique challenges is doing a huge disservice to young people, and missing a key opportunity to safeguard and improve their sexual health, conclude the researchers.

Removal of parasitic cyst from boy's brain

A previously healthy 12-year-old boy was admitted to hospital with a 6-month history of headaches, projectile vomiting and occasional blurry vision--and was later diagnosed with a cyst containing tapeworm larva in his brain, explain doctors writing in the online journal BMJ Case Reports.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- A new study increases and strengthens the links that have led scientists to propose the "transposon theory of aging." Transposons are rogue elements of DNA that break free in aging cells and rewrite themselves elsewhere in the genome, potentially creating lifespan-shortening chaos in the genetic makeups of tissues.

New research presented at this year's European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) meeting in Munich, Germany (12-16 Sept) shows the impact that substituting energy intake from discretionary foods (including sugar-sweetened beverages and confectionary) with healthier, core foods, and reducing levels of added sugar in discretionary foods could have in the diet of the Australian population. The study is by Dr Tom Wycherley, School of Health Sciences, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia, and colleagues.

Mosquitos are more likely to feed on cattle than on humans if they carry a specific chromosomal rearrangement in their genome, reducing their odds of transmitting the malaria parasite, reports Bradley Main at the University of California, Davis in a study published September 12, 2016 in PLOS Genetics.

A research team from the University of Bonn has succeeded for the first time in using light stimuli to stop life-threatening cardiac arrhythmia in mouse hearts. Furthermore, as shown in computer simulations at Johns Hopkins University, this technique could also be used successfully for human hearts. The study opens up a whole new approach to the development of implantable optical defibrillators, in which the strong electrical impulses of conventional defibrillators are replaced by gentler, pain-free light impulses. The Journal of Clinical Investigation has now published the results.

University of Utah researchers have found that the structure of an insulin molecule produced by predatory cone snails may be an improvement over current fast-acting therapeutic insulin. The finding suggests that the cone snail insulin, produced by the snails to stun their prey, could begin working in as few as five minutes, compared with 15 minutes for the fastest-acting insulin currently available.

The microbes living in a baby's gut during its first month of life may directly impact the developing immune system, leading to a higher risk of allergies and asthma later in childhood, according to a study by researchers at UC San Francisco and the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit. The findings highlight the importance of developing early interventions to improve microbial health in young infants.

Thirty-one new gene regions linked with blood pressure have been identified in one of the largest genetic studies of blood pressure to date, involving over 347,000 people, and jointly led by Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and the University of Cambridge.

The discoveries include DNA changes in three genes that have much larger effects on blood pressure in the population than previously seen, providing new insights into the physiology of hypertension and suggesting new targets for treatment.

ANN ARBOR--Microbes that can reproduce rapidly in times of plenty have an evolutionary stockpile of extra genes that allows them to quickly respond to changing conditions such as oil spills or outbreaks of intestinal diseases.

Energy-hoarding bacteria, on the other hand, have far fewer copies of the genes used to make ribosomes, the tiny factories that assemble amino acids into proteins inside cells.