JCU's Dr Tasmin Rymer led a study that produced a template measuring several crucial factors, including an animal's physiology and environment, to determine how it would handle a severe drought.
Dr Rymer said scientists believe the current rate of climate change is unprecedented in Earth's history and will lead to more and worse droughts in many areas.
"So we developed a theoretical framework that allows researchers to estimate the likelihood that a species will be able to cope," she said.
The itchy, red welts that appear after being bitten by a mosquito may help any viruses the insect is carrying pass on to a new host. A mouse study published June 21 in Immunity suggests that the swelling and irritation that make mosquito bites so unpleasant may provide a mechanism by which viruses like Zika are able to replicate and spread.
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy, which edits a cancer patient's T cells to recognize their tumors, has successfully helped patients with aggressive blood cancers but has yet to show the ability to treat solid tumors. To overcome this hurdle, researchers genetically engineered human T cells to produce a CAR protein that recognizes a glycopeptide found on various cancer cells but not normal cells, and then demonstrated its effectiveness in mice with leukemia and pancreatic cancer. Their proof-of-concept study appears June 21 in Immunity.
DALLAS, June 21, 2016 - A blood test that leads to the rejection of donor hearts may be unnecessary in predicting whether a heart transplant will succeed or fail, according to new research in Circulation: Heart Failure, an American Heart Association journal.
In nationally representative surveys conducted between 1999 and 2012, several improvements in self-reported dietary habits were identified, such as increased consumption of whole grains, with additional findings suggesting persistent or worsening disparities based on race/ethnicity and education and income level, according to a study appearing in the June 21 issue of JAMA.
In a study appearing in the June 21 issue of JAMA, Peter Ganz, M.D., of the University of California-San Francisco, and colleagues conducted a study to develop and validate a score to predict risk of cardiovascular outcomes among patients with coronary heart disease using analysis of circulating proteins.
An analysis of more than 60 studies suggests that some plant-based therapies are associated with modest reductions in the frequency of hot flashes and vaginal dryness but no significant reduction in night sweats, according to a study appearing in the June 21 issue of JAMA.
SAN FRANCISCO - June 21, 2016 - A new study estimates that 9.6 million adults in the United States are highly myopic, or severely nearsighted. Of those, nearly 820,000 have a degenerative form of the disease and more than 41,000 suffer a complication called myopic choroidal neovascularization that could cause long-term vision loss, with women at higher risk. The findings are being published online today in Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
Mosquito bite sites are not just itchy, irritating nuisances - they also make viral infections spread by the insects far worse, new research has found.
The study, led by the University of Leeds, found that inflammation where the insect has bitten not only helps a virus such as Zika or dengue establish an infection in the body more quickly, but that it also helps it to spread around the body, increasing the likelihood of severe illness.
Genetically raised levels of C-reactive protein (CRP, an inflammatory protein) are associated with protection against schizophrenia, according to a Mendelian randomization study published this week in PLOS Medicine. The study, published by Behrooz Z. Alizadeh of the University Medical Centre Groningen, The Netherlands, and colleagues, found a lack of association between CRP and a number of somatic and psychiatric disorders, suggesting that many disease-associated rises in CRP levels might be a response rather than cause of the disease.
Erioderma pedicellatum, commonly known as the Boreal felt lichen, grows on trees in the damp boreal forests along the Atlantic coast. It is also one of the most endangered lichens in the world. A new study, published today in Botany, uses population models to determine the survival and future viability of the species.
It takes children until they are about 5 years old to learn to take turns with others, while the social skill seems to elude chimpanzees, according to new findings published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
The findings show that 5-year-old children adopted a turn-taking strategy more effectively than their younger counterparts, suggesting that the skill emerges as children's cognitive abilities mature.
DALLAS (June 21, 2016) - The discovery nearly two decades ago of nine beautifully articulated vertebrae at Big Bend National Park is shedding new light on a 66 million-year-old sauropod native to Texas and the North American southwest called Alamosaurus sanjuanensis.
Usually, it takes a nose to smell, but now - for the first time - scientists have developed a convincing model able to measure odours from pig farms by means of precise measurements of the content of odorants in the atmosphere.
SORLA is a protein that influences the balance of metabolic processes in adipose tissue, a particular form of fat. Too much of it makes fat cells overly sensitive to insulin, which leads them to break down less fat. SORLA was previously known for its protective role in Alzheimer's disease.