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AUSTIN, Texas—Chagas disease, a tropical parasitic disease that can lead to life-threatening heart and digestive disorders, may be more widespread in Texas than previously thought, according to research from The University of Texas at Austin.

"We've been studying this for four years now, and this year the number of disease-causing insects is quite amazing," says Sahotra Sarkar, professor of integrative biology and philosophy at The University of Texas at Austin and lead author of a paper on the disease published in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

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Zivilisiertes menschliches Zusammenleben setzt voraus, dass wir uns an elementare soziale Normen halten. Die Einhaltung dieser Normen stellen wir unter anderem dadurch sicher, dass wir bereit sind, Normverletzungen zu sanktionieren. Häufig geschieht eine solche Bestrafung sogar auf eigene Kosten. Dieses Verhalten widerspricht dem ökonomischen Eigennutz des Bestrafenden und verlangt die Kontrolle egoistischer Impulse.

Innovative Methodenkombination

The fossil beetle discovered in the 16-23 million years old sediments of the Irtysh River in southern Siberia belongs to the modern species Helophorus sibiricus, a member of the water scavenger beetles (Hydrophiloidea), which is at present widely distributed in Eurasia and reaches even North America. The species was originally described in 1860 by the Russian entomologist Victor Motschulsky based on specimens collected at Lake Baikal. It is aquatic and inhabits various kinds of standing waters, predominantly the grassy temporary pools.

Australian scientists studying the reliability of species distribution models for revealing the response of animals to climate change have focused their research on the endangered marsupial, the Northern Bettong. The research, published in Ecography demonstrates that studying weather events, rather than the gradual changes of the climate, offers a clearer insight into the Bettong's movements, range boundaries and likely contact with competitors.

Scientists of the Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITG) have developed a molecular technique to easily and dependably identify the biting midges that spread bluetongue disease. Until know this identification was a problem. The technology helps to understand how the disease spreads, and how to control it. They report in the journal Medical and Veterinary Entomology.

It is widely believed that being born is about the most stressful thing that can happen to anybody. But being weaned cannot be too far behind it in the list of traumatic experiences. Most humans come to terms with it eventually and the situation in animals is probably no different. How weaning takes place, however, can have a dramatic effect on the length of time required to overcome the shock. That this is so, at least for horses, comes from the latest work of the team of Christine Aurich at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna.

TORONTO, Ont., Oct, 5, 2011—A new oral drug has been shown in a large international clinical trial to significantly reduce the relapse rate of people with multiple sclerosis and to slow the progression of the disease.

The results of the Phase 3 trial of the drug teriflunomide were published in The New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday.

Treating women with early stage breast cancer with a combination of chemotherapy and the molecularly targeted drug Herceptin significantly increases survival in patients with a specific genetic mutation that results in very aggressive disease, a researcher with UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center reported Wednesday.

A study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine may lead to a way to prevent the progression, or induce the regression, of lung injury that results from use of the anti-cancer chemotherapy drug Bleomycin. Pulmonary fibrosis caused by this drug, as well as Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) from unknown causes, affect nearly five million people worldwide. No therapy is known to improve the health or survival of patients.

Deerfield, Ill. – Indoor spraying with the insecticide bendiocarb has dramatically decreased malaria transmission in many parts of Benin, new evidence that insecticides remain a potent weapon for fighting malaria in Africa despite the rapid rise of resistance to an entire class of mosquito-killing compounds, according to a study published today in the October edition of The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

STANFORD, Calif. — Investigators at the Stanford University School of Medicine have developed a novel protocol that allows kidney-transplant recipients to jettison their indispensable immune-suppressing drugs. The protocol could also spell substantial savings to the health-care system.

New Rochelle, NY, October 5, 2011 -- A possible new target for breast cancer therapy comes from the discovery that the Tyk2 protein helps suppress the growth and metastasis of breast tumors, as reported in Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research.

STANFORD, Calif. -- North American babies who acquire toxoplasmosis infections in the womb show much higher rates of brain and eye damage than European infants with the same infection, according to new research from the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Many different types of animals come together to form vast groups – insect swarms, mammal herds, or bird flocks, for example. Researchers in France added another example to the list, reported today in the online journal PLoS ONE: the huge Wels catfish, the world's third largest and Europe's largest fresh-water fish. Researchers observed these fish in the Rhone River from May 2009 to Feb.

When an athlete is doing well, commentators may describe him as being "hot" or "on fire," but scientists have generally thought that such streaks were primarily in the eye of the beholder -- until now. Today in the online journal PLoS ONE, researchers report an analysis of five years of NBA free-throws that supports what is called the "hot hand" phenomenon: that a streak of positive outcomes is likely to continue.