Body

An angry glare from the family goldfish might not be the result of a missed meal, but a too-humble abode. Fish in a cramped, barren space turn mean, a study from Case Western Reserve University has found. Ornamental fishes across the U.S. might be at risk, all 182.9 million of them.

"The welfare of aquarium fishes may not seem important, but with that many of them in captivity, they become a big deal," said Ronald Oldfield, an instructor of biology at Case Western Reserve. Why, then, has the welfare of pet fishes been overlooked among the scientific community?

Medical researchers at the University of Leeds have come a step closer to understanding how to stop breast cancers from coming back.

Their findings, published in the International Journal of Cancer, suggest that some novel drugs that are being developed to tackle other cancers should be considered as a future treatment for breast cancer too.

The voice can reveal a lot about a person - their sex, their age, how they are feeling - and recent studies have even suggested that women's voices might also contain cues that men can read about how close they are to ovulation. A new study, however, published today in the journal PLoS ONE, challenges the view that women broadcast reproductive information in their voice.

In an intriguing original look at the history of the first Americans, a new study finds evidence that the north-south orientation of the American continents slowed the spread of populations and technology, compared to the east-west axis of Eurasia. The research, published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, is part of a special section which explores who the first Americans were and how they were able to settle in the last great unexplored habitat.

PHILADELPHIA — After more than three decades of research, University of Pennsylvania veterinarians and vision-research scientists, with associates at Cornell University, have identified a gene responsible for a blindness-inducing disease that afflicts dogs. In the process, the Penn scientists may have discovered clues about how retinal cells, and perhaps even neurons, can be regenerated.

La Jolla--A strain of genetically enhanced bacteria developed by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies may pave the way for new synthetic drugs and new ways of manufacturing medicines and biofuels, according to a paper published September 18 in Nature Chemical Biology.

Knowledge about the biological origin of diseases like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other psychiatric conditions is critical to improving diagnosis and treatment.

In an effort to push the field forward, three UCLA researchers, along with scientists from more than 20 countries, have been taking part in one of the largest collaborative efforts in psychiatry — a genome-wide study involving more than 50,000 study participants aimed at identifying which genetic variants make people susceptible to psychiatric disease.

Sirtuins, proteins believed to significantly increase lifespan in a number of organisms – and the claimed target of some anti-aging creams – do not, in fact, affect animal longevity, according to new research funded by the Wellcome Trust and the European Union.

Sirtuins had previously been linked to aging and longevity in yeast, the nematode worm and the fruit fly, organisms commonly used as models for the biology of human aging. Researchers had shown that when the organism's genes overproduced sirtuin, its lifespan was significantly extended, in nematodes by as much as 50%.

A team led by scientists from Johns Hopkins and the National Institutes of Health has discovered a new genetic mutation for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and a related disease called frontotemporal dementia (FTD) that appears to account for more than a third of all inherited cases of these diseases. The researchers show in a new study published online on September 21 in Neuron that this mutation, found within a gene called C9ORF72, is about twice as common as all the other mutations discovered thus far for the disease combined.

ITHACA, N.Y. — Cornell University researchers are utilizing the complete genome sequences of people alive today to shed light on events at the dawn of human history, such as the times of divergence of early human populations and of the "out of Africa" migration of the ancestors of modern Europeans, Asians, and other non-African groups.

URBANA – In football, linebackers are usually the largest players and have the endurance required to get through a game plus overtime. But when it comes to fish, larger doesn't always mean stronger. A University of Illinois study showed smaller fish recover from exertion faster than larger fish.

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- Scientists may soon be able to make pest insects buzz off for good or even turn them into models for new technologies, all thanks to a tiny finding with enormous potential.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, women who are empowered to make household decisions tend to have sex less often. This is according to a study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. They examined the relationships between married women's autonomy and the time since most recent sexual intercourse and found that women's position in their household may influence sexual activity. The full article will be published in the October issue of the Journal of Sex Research and is currently featured online as an "editor's choice."

In the first study to systematically investigate genome-wide epigenetic differences in a large number of psychosis discordant twin-pairs, research at the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) at King's College London provides further evidence that epigenetic processes play an important role in neuropsychiatric disease. Published in Human Molecular Genetics, the findings may offer potential new avenues for treatment.

Research at the University of Liverpool has found that periods of rapid fluctuation in temperature coincided with the emergence of the first distant relatives of human beings and the appearance and spread of stone tools.