Body

Researchers have discovered a toxin – SElX – released by Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) which leads the body's immune system to go into overdrive and damage healthy cells. SElX is made by 95 per cent of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, making it a potential drug target to fight the hospital superbug. Their findings appear October 13th in the Open Access journal PLoS Pathogens.

Targeting a toxin released by virtually all strains of MRSA could help scientists develop new drugs that can fight the superbug, research suggests.

A study led by the University of Edinburgh has discovered the toxin -- SElX -- which leads the body's immune system to go into overdrive and damage healthy cells.

The toxin SElX is made by 95 per cent of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, including MRSA strains linked with hospital-acquired infections.

Researchers funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), among others, have taken the first step in developing a new type of vaccine to protect chickens against coccidiosis, the most important parasite of poultry globally.

A vaccine of this type -- based on proteins from the coccidiosis bug rather than being derived from a live parasite -- could be produced on a larger scale than is currently possible so could be used to provide much more widespread protection to chicken flocks.

DURHAM, N.C. - Statins can be effective at lowering cholesterol, but they have a perplexing tendency to work for some people and not others. Gut bacteria may be the reason.

A research team led by a Duke University scientist has identified three bile acids produced by gut bacteria that were evident in people who responded well to a common cholesterol-lowering drug called simvastatin. The finding, published Oct. 13, 2011, in PLoS One, demonstrates how gut bacteria can cause inherent differences in the way people digest, metabolize and benefit from substances such as drugs.

First it was chess. Then it was Jeopardy.

Now computers are at it again, but this time they are trying to automate the scientific process itself.

Why don't our arms grow from the middle of our bodies? The question isn't as trivial as it appears. Vertebrae, limbs, ribs, tailbone ... in only two days, all these elements take their place in the embryo, in the right spot and with the precision of a Swiss watch. Intrigued by the extraordinary reliability of this mechanism, biologists have long wondered how it works. Now, researchers at EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) and the University of Geneva (Unige) have solved the mystery. Their discovery will be published October 13, 2011 in the journal Science.

Los Angeles, CA (October 13, 2011) Workplace violence continues to be a topic of great importance to many companies, as tales of extreme cases hit the media. Today's human resources departments spend a great deal of time preparing for these cases. However, a new study in the journal Advances in Developing Human Resources (ADHR) questions whether time might be better invested in further investigation.

An ochre-rich mixture, possibly used for decoration, painting and skin protection 100,000 years ago, and stored in two abalone shells, was discovered at Blombos Cave in Cape Town, South Africa.

"Ochre may have been applied with symbolic intent as decoration on bodies and clothing during the Middle Stone Age," says Professor Christopher Henshilwood from the Institute for Human Evolution at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, who together with his international team discovered a processing workshop in 2008 where a liquefied ochre-rich mixture was produced.

New artificial muscles that twist like the trunk of an elephant, but provide a thousand times higher rotation per length, were announced on Oct. 13 for a publication in Science magazine by a team of researchers from The University of Texas at Dallas, The University of Wollongong in Australia, The University of British Columbia in Canada, and Hanyang University in Korea.

Not long after birth, human babies transition from producing blood containing oxygen-rich fetal hemoglobin to blood bearing the adult hemoglobin protein. For children with sickle cell disease, the transition from the fetal to adult form of hemoglobin – the oxygen-carrying protein in blood -- marks the onset of anemia and painful symptoms of the disorder.

An international effort to replace smoky, inefficient household stoves that people commonly use in lower and middle income countries with clean, affordable, fuel efficient stoves could save nearly 2 million lives each year, according to experts from the National Institutes of Health.

Many living things have stripes, but the developmental processes that create these and other patterns are complex and difficult to untangle.

Now a team of scientists has designed a simple genetic circuit that creates a striped pattern that they can control by tweaking a single gene.

Nature is a master builder. Using a bottom-up approach, nature takes tiny atoms and, through chemical bonding, makes crystalline materials, like diamonds, silicon and even table salt. In all of them, the properties of the crystals depend upon the type and arrangement of atoms within the crystalline lattice.

Now, a team of Northwestern University scientists has learned how to top nature by building crystalline materials from nanoparticles and DNA, the same material that defines the genetic code for all living organisms.

The scene has become all too familiar – the disgraced politician, chastened business leader or shamed celebrity standing before a podium offering up their apologies as the news cameras flash. "Sorry" may be the hardest word to say, but does simply owning up to misdeeds do anything toward regaining trust after a transgression or are words, as some say, cheap?

Power can lead to great acts of altruism, but also corruptive, unethical behavior. Being intoxicated can lead to a first date, or a bar brawl. And the mask of anonymity can encourage one individual to let a stranger know they have toilet paper stuck to their shoe, while another may post salacious photos online. What is the common thread between these three disparate states?