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Bottom Line: Vision loss is associated with a higher likelihood of not working.

Author: Cheryl E. Sherrod, M.D., M.P.H., of Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, and colleagues.

Background: People who do not work have poorer physical and mental health, are less socially integrated and have lower self-confidence.

How the Study Was Conducted: The authors analyzed employment rates by vision impairment in a nationally representative sample of working-age Americans.

Not unlike looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, a team of Michigan State University researchers have found a gene that could be key to the development of stem cells – cells that can potentially save millions of lives by morphing into practically any cell in the body.

The gene, known as ASF1A, was not discovered by the team. However, it is at least one of the genes responsible for the mechanism of cellular reprogramming, a phenomenon that can turn one cell type into another, which is key to the making of stem cells.

Go ahead and call Rachel Dutton's research cheesy if you must. As far as she's concerned, it's anything but an insult.

A Bauer Fellow at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences' Center for Systems Biology, Dutton and her lab study cheese – or more precisely – the bacteria and fungi that live on cheese, in an effort to better understand how microbial communities form.

The genetic blueprint is an invaluable resource to plant science researchers and breeders. For the first time, they have at their disposal a set of tools enabling them to rapidly locate specific genes on individual wheat chromosomes throughout the genome. Jorge Dubcovsky, Professor at the University of California Davis, USA, says that these results "have been a fantastic resource for our laboratory. The development of genome specific primers, which used to take several weeks of work, can now be done in hours.

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (July 18, 2014) Feeding a growing human population without increasing stresses on Earth's strained land and water resources may seem like an impossible challenge. But according to a new report by researchers at the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment, focusing efforts to improve food systems on a few specific regions, crops and actions could make it possible to both meet the basic needs of 3 billion more people and decrease agriculture's environmental footprint.

A cross-disciplinary team is calling for public discussion about a potential new way to solve longstanding global ecological problems by using an emerging technology called "gene drives." The advance could potentially lead to powerful new ways of combating malaria and other insect-borne diseases, controlling invasive species and promoting sustainable agriculture.

Cold Spring Harbor, NY – Closely related organisms share most of their genes, but these similarities belie major differences in behavior, intelligence, and physical appearance. For example, we share nearly 99% of our genes with chimps, our closest relatives on the great "tree of life." Still, the differences between the two species are unmistakable. If not just genes, what else accounts for the disparities?

Viral relics show cancer’s ‘footprint’ on our evolution Cancer has left its ‘footprint’ on our evolution, according to a study which examined how the relics of ancient viruses are preserved in the genomes of 38 mammal species.

PITTSBURGH, July 17, 2014 – Cystic fibrosis (CF) could be considered two diseases, one that affects multiple organs including the lungs, and one that doesn't affect the lungs at all, according to a multicenter team led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The research, published online today in PLOS Genetics, showed that nine variants in the gene associated with cystic fibrosis can lead to pancreatitis, sinusitis and male infertility, but leave the lungs unharmed.

LA JOLLA, CA AND JUPITER, FL—Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and their collaborators have found that ancient enzymes, known for their fundamental role in translating genetic information into proteins, evolved myriad other functions in humans. The surprising discovery highlights an intriguing oddity of protein evolution as well as a potentially valuable new class of therapeutic proteins and therapeutic targets.

MANHATTAN, Kansas — Several Kansas State University researchers were essential in helping scientists assemble a draft of a genetic blueprint of bread wheat, also known as common wheat. The food plant is grown on more than 531 million acres around the world and produces nearly 700 million tons of food each year.

An organism is healthy thanks to a good maintenance system: the normal functioning of organs and environmental exposure cause damage to tissues, which need to be continuously repaired. This process is not yet well understood, but it is known that stem cells in the organs play a key role, and that when repair fails, the organism ages more quickly. Researchers from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) have "discovered one of the key genes that make up the maintenance mechanism for tissues" says Miguel Foronda, the first author of the manuscript.

For decades, the story of spider evolution went like this: As insects became more and more diverse, with some species taking to the skies, spiders evolved new hunting strategies, including the ability to weave orb-shaped webs to trap their prey.

From that single origin, the story goes, orb-weaver spiders diverged along different evolutionary paths, leading to today, where several species weave similar – though not identical – webs.

It's a good story, but there's just one problem – Harvard scientists now know it's not true.

Populations of Atlantic salmon have a surprisingly good capacity to adjust to warmer temperatures that are being seen with climate change, a group of scientists at the University of Oslo and University of British Columbia have discovered. The finding about Atlantic species adds to recent UBC-supported research on heat tolerance of Pacific salmon.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, a growing body of evidence shows that eating lean beef can reduce risk factors for heart disease, according to recent research by nutritional scientists.