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This release is available in http://chinese..org/zh/emb_releases/2010-04/plos-dsm042210.php">Chinese.

Bacteria in the ocean can harvest light energy from sunlight to promote survival thanks to a unique photoprotein. This novel finding by a team of scientists in Sweden and Spain is to be published next week in the online, open access journal PLoS Biology.

A binational team is studying whether running the Yuma Desalting Plant will affect Mexico's Cienega de Santa Clara, the largest wetland on the Colorado River Delta.

The cienega, a 15,000-acre wetland, is home to several endangered species and is a major stopover for birds migrating north and south along the Pacific Flyway.

The desalting plant, or YDP, is scheduled to begin its latest trial run May 3.

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Smokers who don't quit before radiation therapy for throat, mouth and other head and neck cancers fair significantly worse than those who do, research from the UC Davis Cancer Center has found.

Allen Chen, an assistant professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the UC Davis Cancer Center, found that head- and neck-cancer patients who continue to smoke during radiation therapy have poorer 5-year overall survival and higher rates of disease recurrence than those who quit smoking prior to treatment.

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found a potential new treatment for osteonecrosis, or the death of bone tissue, in people who are treated with steroids for several common medical conditions. There are currently no treatment options for people with this debilitating disease. The research is published in the April 27 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The use of vitamin B to stop kidney damage in people with diabetes needs a closer look, and those with kidney damage now taking high vitamin B doses, should stop. That is the advice from a leading researcher at The University of Western Ontario who found surprising results in a study looking at the effects of vitamin B therapy on diabetic nephropathy. The study is published in the April 28 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

CHICAGO --- Every year thousands of people get heart scans that provide pictures of calcium deposits in their coronary arteries. Studies have shown that the coronary artery calcium score (CACS) can point to signs of atherosclerosis and predict future heart attacks.

A new Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine study shows for the first time that using the CACS while also considering traditional risk factors for heart disease is a better method than using traditional predictors alone to predict future heart attacks.

DURHAM, N.C. – The cost of imaging studies in cancer patients covered by Medicare is growing at twice the rate of the overall costs of cancer care in that group, according to scientists in the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI). A dramatic increase in PET scans is leading the way.

Imaging is the fastest growing expense for Medicare, but until now, it has not been analyzed as a specific component of care within the cancer population.

The study results appear in the April 28 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Use of a score based on the amount of calcium in coronary arteries in addition to traditional risk factors improved the classification of risk for prediction of coronary heart disease events, and placed more individuals in the most extreme risk categories, according to a study in the April 28 issue of JAMA.

Patients with diabetic nephropathy (kidney disease caused by diabetes) who received high dose B-vitamin therapy experienced a more rapid decline in kidney function and had a higher rate of heart attack and stroke than patients who received placebo, according to a study in the April 28 issue of JAMA.

Long-term anabolic steroid use may weaken the heart more than previously thought and may increase the risk of heart failure, according to research reported in Circulation: Heart Failure, an American Heart Association journal.

Anabolic-androgenic steroids mimic the naturally occurring testosterone, a muscle-building hormone that promotes male sexual characteristics.

Including a coronary artery calcium score in a risk assessment for future heart disease events, such as heart attacks, provides a better estimate in some populations than a standard coronary risk factors assessment, according to research supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health.

A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but it would no longer be a rose. If a grass is booted out of the grass family, where does it go?

Children with sickle cell disease who also have lower blood oxygen levels while both asleep and awake are likely to have heart abnormalities, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and other institutions have found.

Heart problems are fairly common in young adults with sickle cell disease, but physicians don't fully understand why. The researchers demonstrated that lower oxygen saturation in the blood was linked to the heart structure seen in the 44 children studied.