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(Toronto, Canada – January 20, 2011) – Cancer scientists led by Dr. John Dick at the Ontario Cancer Institute (OCI) and collaborators at St Jude Children's Research Hospital (Memphis) have found that defective genes and the individual leukemia cells that carry them are organized in a more complex way than previously thought.

LA JOLLA, CA – A team of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute and the University of Virginia has determined the structure of the protein package that delivers the genetic material of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to human cells.

The work is the culmination of studies carried out over the last decade looking at different portions of the cone-shaped container, or the capsid. The final piece of the puzzle, described in an article published in Nature on January 20, 2011, details the structure of the two ends of the cone.

Conservation paleobiologists—scientists who use the fossil record to understand the evolutionary and ecological responses of present-day species to changes in their environment – are putting the dead to work.

Scientists are reporting development and successful lab tests of "killer paper," a material intended for use as a new food packaging material that helps preserve foods by fighting the bacteria that cause spoilage. The paper, described in ACS' journal, Langmuir, contains a coating of silver nanoparticles, which are powerful anti-bacterial agents.

Scientists are reporting an advance in overcoming a major barrier to the use of the genetic material RNA in nanotechnology — the field that involves building machines thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair and now is dominated by its cousin, DNA. Their findings, which could speed the use of RNA nanotechnology for treating disease, appear in the monthly journal ACS Nano.

Scientists are reporting a key advance toward development of a way to combat the terrible plant diseases that caused the Irish potato famine and still inflict billions of dollars of damage to crops each year around the world. Their study appears in ACS' bi-weekly journal Organic Letters.

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- The forecast for predicting the next political hotspots could be much more accurate because of a model developed by two Kansas State University professors and a colleague in New York.

The model, named the Predictive Societal Indicators of Radicalism Model of Domestic Political Violence Forecast, is currently five for five in predicting which countries will likely experience an escalation in domestic political violence against their governments within the next five years.

Fairfax, Va., January 18, 2011 – HIV-positive head and neck cancer patients respond well to radiation therapy treatments and experience similar toxicity rates as non-HIV-positive patients, despite prior reports to the contrary, according to a study in the January issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology•Biology•Physics, an official journal of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).

In birds as in humans, female fertility declines with age.

But some female birds can slow the ticking of their biological clocks by choosing the right mates, according to results of a study published online last week in the journal Oikos.

Female birds become progressively less fertile as age takes its toll, says biologist Josh Auld of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, North Carolina, and co-author of the Oikos paper.

Older females lay fewer eggs, and they lay them later in the season--at a time when less food is available for their chicks.

Baked goods made from hydrolyzed wheat flour are not toxic to celiac disease patients, according to a new study in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute. Celiac disease occurs in the digestive system when people cannot tolerate a protein called gluten, which is found primarily in wheat.

Washington, DC, January 19, 2011— Both boys and girls who are victims of bullying, including bullying through e-mail and the internet, are at elevated risk for depression. However, according to a new study, adolescent girls may engage in substance use as a result of bullying-related depression,.

Researchers at Neiker-Tecnalia (the Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development) have undertaken a study on the epidemiology and diagnosis of infection by visna/maedi virus. This is a virus that affects sheep herds causing chronic interstitial pneumonia, mastitis and neurological disorders. The study confirmed that horizontal transmission (direct contact between infected animals) of the virus is the most likely path of infection, rather than vertical transmission (from infected suckling milk or colostrum).