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Chicago, IL (July 21, 2011)—A study in the August issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), suggests that documentation of hepatitis B vaccination for health care students may fall short of current recommendations.

A new supplemental issue of The Gerontologist urges aging researchers to include representative samples of ethnically diverse populations in their work. The publication also identifies research priorities for moving the science of recruitment and retention forward, in addition to providing several strategies that scholars can employ in their work. The U.S. Census Bureau predicts that non-white minorities will make up 42 percent of the country's 65-and-over population by 2050.

An invasive insect, hemlock woolly adelgid, has been marching north along the Appalachians, killing almost every hemlock tree in its path. The adelgid has devastated forests in Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia. The pest recently arrived in Vermont and other parts of New England. So far, only extreme cold stops the adelgid.

But now a University of Vermont scientist has developed what he calls a "fungal microfactory" technology that promises to give forest managers and homeowners a tool to fight back.

Sexual transmission of hepatitis C virus (HCV) is considered rare. But a new study by researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), provides substantial evidence that men with HIV who have sex with other men (MSM) are at increased risk for contracting HCV through sex.

The results of the study are published in today's edition of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

HOUSTON -- (July 21, 2011) -- Over millennia, mice have thrived despite humanity's efforts to keep them at bay. A Rice University scientist argues some mice have found two ways to achieve a single goal -- resistance to common poison.

New research by Michael Kohn and colleagues, reported today in the online journal Current Biology, analyzes a genetic mutation that has given the ordinary European house mouse this extraordinary ability.

A new study reveals that just as different soldiers in the field have different jobs, subsets of a type of immune cell that polices the barriers of the body can promote unique and opposite immune responses against the same type of infection. The research, published online on July 21st by Cell Press in the journal Immunity, enhances our understanding of the early stages of the immune response and may have important implications for vaccinations and treatment of autoimmune diseases.

For the conservation of species, hostile territory might sometimes have its advantages. That's according to a study of pollen flow among trees found only in remnant patches of native Chilean forest. The data show that the pollinators those rare trees rely on can be waylaid by the abundance of resources found in agricultural lands. As a result, trees growing in native forest patches are more likely to mate successfully when separated by resource-poor pine plantations than by those more attractive farmlands.

Since the 1950s, people have tried to limit the numbers of mice and rats using a poison known as warfarin. But, over the course of evolution, those pesky rodents have found a way to make a comeback, resisting that chemical via changes to a gene involved in vitamin K recycling and blood clotting. Now, researchers reporting online on July 21 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, show that European mice have in some cases acquired that resistance gene in a rather unorthodox way: they got it secondhand from an Algerian mouse.

Researchers now have a much clearer understanding of how mutations in a single gene can produce the complex cognitive deficits characteristic of Fragile X Syndrome, the most common inherited form of intellectual disability. As the majority of patients with Fragile X Syndrome also display autism-like symptoms, the findings offer hope for treating both conditions.

Toxins produced by plants and bacteria pose a significant threat to humans, as emphasized by the recent effects of cucumber-borne Shiga toxin in Germany. Now, new research published on July 21st by the Cell Press journal Developmental Cell provides a clearer view of the combination of similar and divergent strategies that different toxins use to invade a human host cell.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists have identified a family of proteins that close a critical gap in an enzyme that is essential to all life, allowing the enzyme to maintain its grip on DNA and start the activation of genes.

The enzyme, called RNA polymerase, is responsible for setting gene expression in motion in all cells. RNA polymerase wraps itself around the double helix of DNA, using one strand to match nucleotides and make a copy of genetic material.

MADISON, WI, JULY 21, 2011 -- Surface water quality is important for the proper function of aquatic ecosystems, as well as human needs and recreation. Pasturelands have been found to be major sources of sediment, phosphorus and pathogens in Midwest surface water resources. While poor grazing management may lead to contaminated surface water, little is known about the specific amount of pollution in pasture streams that can be attributed to grazing cattle.

A new study published in the American Journal of Transplantation reveals that since the elimination of the kidney allocation priority for matching for HLA-B on May 7, 2003, access to kidney transplantation for minorities has been improved. Improvement is a result of a policy that reduced the requirements for tissue matching.

In pure numerical terms, anesthesia-associated mortality has risen again. The reasons for this are the disproportionate increase in the numbers of older and multimorbid patients and surgical procedures that would have been unthinkable in the past. This is the result of a selective literature review of André Gottschalk's working group at the Bochum University Hospital in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2011; 108[27]: 469-74).