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In Australia, when crossing from one state to another, travelers may encounter a quarantine stop and may be required to forfeit recently purchased fruits and vegetables as a hedge against invasive pests. But in the U.S., crossing state lines is free wheeling, according to researchers from the U.S., Australia and New Zealand, who evaluated the threat of invasive pests to states from within the country.

Montreal December 1, 2010 – The versatile organism Lactococcus lactis, the workhorse bacterium that helps turn milk into cheese, may also be valuable in the understanding of how microbes turn the organic compound cellulose into biofuels.

New research from Concordia University, published in the journal Microbial Cell Factories, suggests the bacterium can be engineered to transform plant material into biofuels or other chemicals.

For the first time, scientists have described not only the identities and quantities of fat species in a living mammalian cell – in this case, a mouse macrophage or white blood cell – but they also report how these lipids react and change over time to a bacterial stimulus triggering the cell's immune response.

A gene that controls part of the 'tick tock' in a plant's circadian clock has been identified by UC Davis researchers. And not only is the plant gene very similar to one in humans, but the human gene can work in plant cells -- and vice versa. The research is published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Once lost in the mists of time, the colonial hydrology of the northeastern U.S. has been reconstructed by a team of geoscientists, biological scientists and social scientists.

The results, which extend as far back as the year 1600, appear in the current issue of the journal Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T).

Rosemont, Ill. – Should you be the victim of a snakebite, the best thing you can do is get to a hospital as quickly as possible, according to a new review article from the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (JAAOS). Current medical treatments, including new medications and surgery, if necessary, are far more effective for snakebites than anything you can do on your own.

Parents are often amazed at how fast their child grows and develops. New research at the University of Missouri has determined that the ability to quantify – even things that are hard to quantify, such as liquid – may develop much sooner than most parents realize.

Plant and animal extinctions are detrimental to your health.

That's the conclusion of a paper published in this week's issue of the journal Nature by scientists who studied the link between biodiversity and infectious diseases.

Species loss in ecosystems such as forests and fields results in increases in pathogens, or disease-causing organisms, the researchers found.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF)-National Institutes of Health (NIH) Ecology of Infectious Diseases (EID) Program.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---University of Michigan researchers have discovered that a protein known to regulate cellular metabolism is also necessary for normal cell division in blood-forming stem cells. Loss of the protein results in an abnormal number of chromosomes and a high rate of cell death.

Conservation and international aid groups may be on the wrong course to address the havoc wreaked by climate change on tropical rainforests, according to a commentary appearing in the journal Nature on 2 December 2010.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have learned the atomic-scale arrangement of proteins in a structure that enables a virus to invade and fuse with host cells, showing precisely how the structure morphs with changing acidity to initiate infection.

On November 30, 2010, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences (IOM) in the US released new recommendations on daily reference intakes for vitamin D and calcium across all ages. The report is based on available evidence in the literature, with higher quality studies, supporting the role of these nutrients on bone health. Vitamin D deficiency is an important health issue to address as it has been linked to the pathogenesis of osteoporosis and hip fractures as well as other skeletal and non-skeletal disorders.

(Boston) – Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have identified a mechanism by which specific viruses acting as oncolytic agents can enter and kill cancer cells. This finding, which is currently featured in an online edition of the Journal of Virology, could help lead to the development of more targeted treatments against many types of cancer.

The study was conducted by Ewan F. Dunn, a postdoctoral fellow, under the direction of John H. Connor, an assistant professor of microbiology at BUSM.