Body

TORONTO, June 23, 2014 – Some sticky research out of York University shows a surprisingly effective way to fight against a certain species of toxic grass fungus: moose saliva (yes… moose saliva).

Published in this month's Biology Letters, "Ungulate saliva inhibits a grass–endophyte mutualism" shows that moose and reindeer saliva, when applied to red fescue grass (which hosts a fungus called epichloë festucae that produces the toxin ergovaline) results in slower fungus growth and less toxicity.

MADISON — To share is human.

And the means to share personal news — good and bad — have exploded over the last decade, particularly social media and texting. But until now, all research about what is known as "social sharing," or the act of telling others about the important events in our lives, has been restricted to face-to-face interactions.

PITTSBURGH—Computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University, working with high-throughput data generated by breast cancer biologists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, have devised a computational method to determine how gene networks are rewired as normal breast cells turn malignant and as they respond to potential cancer therapy agents.

This method for analyzing how genes interact with each other in laboratory-grown cells is described in a report published today by the online journal PLOS Computational Biology.

Reversing the increasing rate of global biodiversity losses may not be possible without embracing intensive, and sometimes controversial, forms of threatened species management, according to a New Zealand zoologist and colleagues writing in the leading international journal Science.

Research published today in PLOS Pathogens reveals how viruses called bacteriophages destroy the bacterium Clostridium difficile (C. diff), which is becoming a serious problem in hospitals and healthcare institutes, due to its resistance to antibiotics. The study, by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Hamburg, Germany, could help bring about a new way of fighting this and other bacteria.

A research team led by Jackson Laboratory Professor and Howard Hughes Investigator Susan Ackerman, Ph.D., have pinpointed a surprising mechanism behind neurodegeneration in mice, one that involves a defect in a key component of the cellular machinery that makes proteins, known as transfer RNA or tRNA.

While HIV is found in many body fluids, sexual transmission through semen is the most common route of infection. Consequently, the amount of virus in semen (the semen viral load) affects the likelihood of HIV transmission. Besides sperm, semen also contains immune factors and communities of bacteria, an environment that could influence the viral load.

PULLMAN, Wash. – Washington State University researchers say ancestral exposures to the pesticide methoxychlor may lead to adult onset kidney disease, ovarian disease and obesity in future generations.

"What your great-grandmother was exposed to during pregnancy, like the pesticide methoxychlor, may promote a dramatic increase in your susceptibility to develop disease, and you will pass this on to your grandchildren in the absence of any continued exposures," says Michael Skinner, WSU professor and founder of its Center for Reproductive Biology.

After the asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous period that triggered the dinosaurs' extinction and ushered in the Paleocene, leaf-mining insects in the western United States completely disappeared. Only a million years later, at Mexican Hat, in southeastern Montana, fossil leaves show diverse leaf-mining traces from new insects that were not present during the Cretaceous, according to paleontologists.

Only 8.2% of human DNA is likely to be doing something important – is 'functional' – say Oxford University researchers.

This figure is very different from one given in 2012, when some scientists involved in the ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) project stated that 80% of our genome has some biochemical function.

Vouchers to buy fresh fruits and vegetables at farmers markets increase the amount of produce in the diets of some families on food assistance, according to research led by NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

The study, which appears online in Food Policy, suggests that farmers market vouchers can be useful tools in improving access to healthy food. This finding validates a new program created by the Agricultural Act of 2014, or farm bill, that incentivizes low-income families to buy produce at farmers markets.

BOSTON -- A new study has shown that it is possible to predict long-term cancer risk from a chemical exposure by measuring the short-term effects of that same exposure. The findings, which currently appear in the journal PLOS ONE, will make it possible to develop simpler and cheaper tests to screen chemicals for their potential cancer causing risk.

Acoustic disturbance has different effects on different species of fish, according to a new study from the Universities of Bristol and Exeter which tested fish anti-predator behaviour.

Three-spined sticklebacks responded sooner to a flying seagull predator model when exposed to additional noise, whereas no effects were observed in European minnows.

(Boston)--Minority women who received the Human Papillomavirus Vaccination (HPV) even after becoming sexually active had lower rates of abnormal Pap test results than those who were never vaccinated. These findings appear in the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

Researchers from Boston University School of Public Health and School of Medicine conducted a cross-sectional study of 235 women age 21 to 30 undergoing routine cervical cytology testing. HPV status and demographic and behavioral characteristics were self-reported and verified with electronic medical records.

PHILADELPHA—A rare procedure occasionally performed during Jewish circumcisions that involves direct oral suction is a likely source of herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) transmissions documented in infants between 1988 and 2012, a literature review conducted by Penn Medicine researchers and published online in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society found.