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In Japan, the hon-shimeji mushroom is a delicacy costing up to SEK 8,000 a kilo (800 Euro). Now a student at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, has discovered that this tasty fungus also grows wild in Sweden.

"There will undoubtedly be a lot of interest in Sweden, and definitely in Japan once these discoveries become known there," says Henrik Sundberg, who conducted the study.

Bees could have a key role to play in urgently-needed new treatments to fight the virulent MRSA bug, according to research led at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland.

The scientists found that a substance known as beeglue or propolis, originating from beehives in the Pacific region, was active against MRSA, which causes potentially fatal infections, particularly in hospital patients.

The bug was either the underlying cause or a contributory factor in more than 1,900 deaths between 1996 and 2008.

28 June 2010 [Vienna, Austria] – Three leading scientific and health policy organizations today launched a global drive for signatories to the Vienna Declaration (www.viennadeclaration.com), a statement seeking to improve community health and safety by calling for the incorporation of scientific evidence into illicit drug policies. Among those supporting the declaration and urging others to sign is 2008 Nobel Laureate and International AIDS Society (IAS) Governing Council member Prof.

Neuherberg, Düsseldorf, June, 28. 2010. An international consortium including Helmholtz Zentrum München and the German Diabetes Center, Düsseldorf has identified 12 new gene variants which impact the individual's risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The study represents a major contribution towards elucidating the complex pathogenesis of this important widespread disease. Nature Genetics has published the findings of this study in its current issue.

How tall can a tree grow? Does sunlight or water limit the size and photosynthetic capacity of a leaf? Could constraints on leaf growth really determine the height of a tree? These are all questions that Alana Oldham of Humboldt State University, CA, was eager to answer as she and her colleagues dangled from an ancient redwood tree well over a football field's length in height above the ground.

June 25, 2010, TORONTO—The G8 leaders inch toward progress, yet leave millions of children out in the cold with the underfunded Muskoka Initiative for maternal and child health, says international Christian humanitarian organization World Vision, after heads of state meeting in Canada today announced a pledge of $5 billion over five years for maternal and child health programs globally.

VANCOUVER, Wash. –International law has failed to protect coral reefs and tropical fish from being decimated by a growing collectors market, but U.S. reforms can lead the way towards making the trade more responsible, ecologically sustainable and humane.

Oakland, CA (June 28) – The combination vaccine for measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox (MMRV) is associated with double the risk of febrile seizures for 1- to 2-year-old children compared with same-day administration of the separate vaccine for MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) and the varicella (V) vaccine for chicken pox, according to a Kaiser Permanente Division of Research study appearing online in the journal Pediatrics. A febrile seizure is a brief, fever-related convulsion but it does not lead to epilepsy or seizure disorders, researchers explained.

DURHAM, N.C. – Men who use statins to lower their cholesterol are 30 percent less likely to see their prostate cancer come back after surgery compared to men who do not use the drugs, according to researchers at Duke University Medical Center. Researchers also found that higher doses of the drugs were associated with lower risk of recurrence.

The findings are published in the journal CANCER.

Social housing provision in Northern Ireland is not adequately funded to comply with international human rights standards. That's according to researchers at Queen's University Belfast, who publish their report, Budgeting for Social Housing: A Human Rights Analysis, today (Monday 28th June).

Rome, Italy: Researchers have developed a way of accurately predicting when women will hit the menopause using a simple blood test. The average difference between the predicted age and the actual age that the women in their study reached the menopause was only a third of a year, and the maximum margin of error was between three and four years.

Irvine, Calif. – Healthier cafeteria choices, longer and more intense periods of physical activity and robust in-school education programs can lower rates of obesity and other risk factors for type 2 diabetes, according to a national study called HEALTHY.

The findings will be presented Sunday, June 27, at the American Diabetes Association's 70th Scientific Sessions event in Orlando, Fla., and will appear online and in the June 29 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

CHAPEL HILL, NC – Cancer occurs when human cells move and multiply inappropriately. Within cells, a process called phosphorylation serves as an on/off switch for a number of cellular processes that can be involved in cancer, including metabolism, transcription, configuration, movement, cell death and differentiation. This process is controlled by a group of enzymes called protein kinases that – working together and separately – modify the structure of proteins, changing them and allowing them to control cellular processes.

STANFORD, Calif. — Using new technology that allows scientists to monitor how individual cells react in the complex system of cell signaling, Stanford University researchers have uncovered a much larger spectrum of differences between each cell than ever seen before.

Cells don't all act in a uniform fashion, as was previously thought.

A cluster of carbon nanotubes coated with a thin layer of protein-recognizing polymer form a biosensor capable of using electrochemical signals to detect minute amounts of proteins, which could provide a crucial new diagnostic tool for the detection of a range of illnesses, a team of Boston College researchers report in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.