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ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Amid concerns about the lagging math and science performance of American children, American adults are actually scoring higher than they did 20 years ago on a widely used index of civic scientific literacy, according to a University of Michigan researcher.

Montreal, February 16, 2011 – Recent studies conducted at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM) on a group of PCSK enzymes could have a positive impact on health, from cholesterol to osteoporosis. A team led by Dr. Nabil G. Seidah, Director of the Biochemical Neuroendocrinology research unit, has published six articles in prestigious scientific journals over the past four months, all shedding light on novel functions of certain PCSK enzymes.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Feb. 16, 2011 — Whole genome sequencing — spelling out a person's entire DNA genetic code — has moved one step closer to being a medical option for direct patient care.

Physicians and researchers at Mayo Clinic in Arizona and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) successfully completed sequencing both a single patients normal and cancer cells – a tour de force of more than 6 billion DNA chemical bases.

Berkeley — The Western fence lizard's reputation for helping to reduce the threat of Lyme disease is in jeopardy. A new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, found that areas where the lizard had been removed saw a subsequent drop in the population of the ticks that transmit Lyme disease.

Accurate transmission of genetic information requires the precise replication of DNA. Errors in DNA replication are common and nature has developed several cellular mechanisms for repairing these mistakes. Mutations, which can be deleterious (development of cancerous cells), or beneficial (evolutionary adaption), arise from uncorrected errors.

Elderly Medicare black patients have a higher 30-day hospital readmission rate for several conditions including congestive heart failure and pneumonia compared to white patients, that is related in part to higher readmission rates among hospitals that disproportionately care for black patients, according to a study in the February 16 issue of JAMA.

An analysis of data including more than 500,000 adults indicates that levels in the blood of bilirubin (a compound produced by the breakdown of hemoglobin from red blood cells) in the normal range but relatively higher were associated with a reduced risk of lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and all-cause death, according to a study in the February 16 issue of JAMA.

Boston, MA – Elderly black patients were more likely to be readmitted to the hospital after a prior hospital stay for a heart attack, heart failure, or pneumonia, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers. They found that the higher readmission rates were due to disparities related to both race and the hospitals where patients were treated.

HOUSTON - An essential protein for normal stem cell renewal also promotes the growth of breast cancer stem cells when it's overproduced in those cells, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center report in the February edition of Cancer Cell.

In mouse and lab experiments, the team also discovered that two drugs block the cascade of molecular events that they describe in the paper, thwarting formation of breast tumor-initiating cells.

AMES, Iowa – Automobiles, military vehicles, even large-scale power generating facilities may someday operate far more efficiently thanks to a new alloy developed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory. A team of researchers at the Lab that is jointly funded by the DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, achieved a 25 percent improvement in the ability of a key material to convert heat into electrical energy.

Boston, MA – An estimated 10 million Americans suffer from knee osteoarthritis (OA), making it one of the most common causes of disability in the US. Due to obesity and symptomatic knee OA, Americans over the age of 50 will together lose the equivalent of 86 million healthy years of life, concluded researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), who investigated the potential gains in quality and quantity of life that could be achieved averting losses due to obesity and knee OA. These findings are published in the February 15 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine.

Interactions between proteins are of fundamental importance for a number of processes in virtually every living cell. However, in order for the proteins to carry out any biological function, they must first assume their specific three-dimensional shape. A number of reactions have been described in recent years, where one of the interaction partners does not assume its active structure until the actual binding process commences. It was still a great mystery, though, how the binding partners could actually recognize such unstructured proteins.

New research sheds light on the interaction between the semi-flexible protein tropomyosin and actin thin filaments. The study, published by Cell Press on February 15th in the Biophysical Journal, provides the first detailed atomic model of tropomyosin bound to actin and significantly advances the understanding of the dynamic relationship between these key cellular proteins.

WASHINGTON – A National Research Council committee asked to examine the scientific approaches used and conclusions reached by the Federal Bureau of Investigation during its investigation of the 2001 Bacillus anthracis mailings has determined that it is not possible to reach a definitive conclusion about the origins of the anthrax in letters mailed to New York City and Washington, D.C., based solely on the available scientific evidence.

Findings of the committee's study include:

The genome of the Blackleg fungus, which causes the most damaging disease to canola crops worldwide, has been sequenced for the first time by a team of French and Australian scientists.

Professor Barbara Howlett from the School of Botany at the University of Melbourne, who led the Australian research team, said the discovery was a significant step towards controlling the rampant Blackleg disease.