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Prejudice can be a powerful influence, biasing the way we think about and act towards ethnic minorities. Now, a new study suggests that this bias even influences what people believe the faces of members belonging to specific ethnic minority groups look like.

CHAPEL HILL – Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Vanderbilt University Medical Center have synthetically reconstructed the bat variant of the SARS coronavirus (CoV) that caused the SARS epidemic of 2003.

The scientists say designing and synthesizing the virus is a major step forward in their ability to find effective vaccines and treatments for any strain of SARS virus that might affect humans in the future.

Want to quickly improve your happiness and satisfaction with life? Then the pen may be a mighty weapon, according to research done by Kent State University's Dr. Steven Toepfer.

Toepfer, an assistant professor of family and consumer studies at university's Salem Campus, says that expressive writing is something that has been available to mankind since ink first appeared in Egypt more than 4,000 years ago.

NEW YORK (Nov. 25, 2008) -- Individuals reporting a history of periodontal disease were more likely to have increased levels of inflammation, a risk factor for heart disease, compared to those who reported no history of periodontal disease, according to an American Journal of Cardiology report available online today.

Scientists have detected an organic sugar molecule that is directly linked to the origin of life, in a region of our galaxy where habitable planets could exist. The discovery, part funded by the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), is published today (25th November) on the Astro-ph website.

The international team of researchers, including a researcher at University College London (UCL), used the IRAM radio telescope in France to detect the molecule in a massive star forming region of space, some 26000 light years from Earth.

Algae are distributed widely on the earth, from land to ocean, from freshwater to saline water, and from the polar to the tropical regions. Algae have been part of Chinese food for thousands of years. They were used as Chinese traditional medicine and cited in Chinese literatures as early as 2500 years ago. Since 1949 China has successfully established the largest seaweed cultivation industry in the world.

A species of fruit fly from the Seychelles Islands often lays larvae instead of eggs, UC San Diego biologists have discovered. Clues to how animals switch from laying eggs to live birth may be found in the well-studied species' ecology and genes.

The fly is one of a dozen species of Drosophila to have recently had their genomes sequenced, information that should provide abundant opportunities for identifying genetic changes that cause females of this species, and not others, to retain their fertilized eggs until they are ready to hatch.

How many mouths does a plant need in order to survive? The answer changes depending on climate, and some of the decisions are made long before a new leaf sprouts.

Stanford researchers have found that the formation of microscopic pores called stomata (derived from the Greek word stoma, meaning mouth) is controlled by a specific signaling pathway that blocks activity of a single protein required for stomata development. The findings are described in a paper published Nov. 14 in Science.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – If you're a cancer cell, you want a protein called Bcl-2 on your side because it decides if you live or die. It's usually a trusted bodyguard, protecting cancer cells from programmed death and allowing them to grow and form tumors. But sometimes it turns into their assassin.

Scientists knew it happened, but they didn't know how to actually cause such a betrayal. Now they do. And it may lead to the development of new cancer-fighting drugs.

Scientists at Penn State have shed light on some of the processes that regulate genes -- such as the processes that ensure that proteins are produced at the correct time, place, and amount in an organism -- and they also have shed light on the evolution of the DNA regions that regulate genes. The team focused on regulatory regions that, when bound to the protein GATA1, are thought to turn on genes that play an important role in the development of red blood cells.

A trial of peer-led sex education in schools in England has found that it is not more effective at reducing teenage abortions than the sex education classes given by teachers. However, the study, published in the open access journal PLoS Medicine, does show that a peer-led approach to sex education is preferred by pupils and suggests it should still be considered as part of a broad strategy to reduce teenage pregnancy.

In low-transmission areas, if widely used, artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) may reduce malaria transmission as effectively as the widespread use of insecticide-treated bed nets, says a new study published in next week's PLoS Medicine. The study also finds that the use of longer-acting anti-malarial regimens with or without artemisinin components may be an effective way to reduce transmission in high-transmission areas, provided the development of parasite resistance can be avoided.

A provocative debate in this week's PLoS Medicine examines whether the private sector should step up its involvement in delivering health care in low-income countries.

These countries suffer a disproportionate burden of disease, and often struggle with weak health systems. Both the public and private sector deliver health care in these countries, but the appropriate role for each of these sectors in health system strengthening remains controversial.

In this week's issue of PLoS Biology, a team of Marseilles University lecturers led by Pascal Hingamp, describe the Annotathon – an innovative bioinformatics teaching approach that appeals to undergraduate biology students. With an increasing interest in metagenomics – the decoding of not just a single genome, but of an entire microbial ecosystem – the amount of data produced is more than a biologist can keep up with. Because of this, Bioinformatics – the use of computer techniques to process biological data – is becoming more popular.

Starving "social amoebas" seek the support of genetically similar "kin" when they form multi-cellular organisms to ensure survival, researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University in Houston report in a paper published today in the open-access journal PLoS Biology.