Body

Tumor necrosis factor – normally an infection-fighting substance produced by the body– can actually heighten susceptibility to tuberculosis if its levels are too high.

University of Washington TB researchers unravel this conundrum in a report this week in Cell.

Their study shows how excess production of this disease-cell destroyer at first acts as a TB germ killer. But later the opposite occurs: too much tumor necrosis factor encourages TB pathogens to multiply in the body.

A "garden variety" leaf is a broad, flat structure, but if the garden happens to be somewhere arid, it probably includes succulent plants with plump leaves full of precious water. Fat leaves did not emerge in the plant world easily. A new Brown University study published in Current Biology reports that to sustain efficient photosynthesis, they required the evolution of a fundamental remodeling of leaf vein structure: the addition of a third dimension.

Circadian rhythms keep time for all living things, from regulating when plants open their flowers to foiling people when they try to beat jet lag. Day-night cycles are controlled through ancient biological mechanisms, evolutionarily speaking, so in essence, a human has the same internal clock as a fly does.

Sany acquired German mid-sized company Putzmeister, a leading manufacturer of concrete pumps, to become a world leader in heavy machinery. Lenovo took over the electronics company Medion. Weichai Power bought a stake in Kion, one of the world's biggest forklift truck manufacturers. The list of Chinese companies that have recently bought German firms outright or acquired a stake in them is long. By realizing an opportunity in the midst of the economic and financial crisis, they have been have made a change towards medium-sized technology and market leaders.

New Rochelle, NY, April 11, 2013—Pulmonary fibrosis is a chronic, deadly disease that affects five million people worldwide. It is irreversible, its cause is poorly understood, and it has a median survival of only about 3 years. A new study that implicates mast cells—an immune cell involved in allergic asthma—in the development of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis could lead to new, more effective therapies. The study is published in DNA and Cell Biology, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

Females in the animal kingdom have many methods available to them to help bias male paternity. One such process is displayed by Euxesta bilimeki, a species of Ulidiid fly, whose females expel and then consume male ejaculate after copulation. A new study by Christian Rodriguez-Enriquez and his colleagues from the Instituto de Ecologia in Mexico has been researching the possible reasons why the female of this species might adopt this behavior. Their study is published in the Springer journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.

An international team of researchers have proven dinosaur embryos to be the oldest ever found. The specimens of Lufengosaurus discovered in China lived during the lower Jurassic about 200 to 190 million years ago. Based on the bone tissue, they were able to show that the fossils must have been in a very early stage of development. The rapid growth and high reproductive rate of these Chinese dinosaurs is astounding. The results are in Nature.

New Orleans, LA – Research led by Dr. Suresh Alahari, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, is the first to report that two specific tumor suppressor genes work in concert to inhibit the growth and spread of breast tumor cells to the lungs. The research is published this week online in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

An annual report from the American Cancer Society finds continuing challenges in changing behaviors and risk factors in order to reduce suffering and death from cancer. The report, Cancer Prevention & Early Detection Facts & Figures (CPED) 2013, outlines the current prevalence of tobacco use, obesity, physical inactivity, and the use of established screening tests, and emphasizes that social, economic, and legislative factors profoundly influence the individual health behaviors that contribute to cancer risk.

A team of researchers at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center has found that a protein long believed to have a minor role in type 2 diabetes is, in fact, a central player in the development of the condition that affects nearly 26 million people in the United States alone and counts as one of the leading causes of heart disease, stroke and kidney, eye and nerve damage.

Traditional opinion polls may severely underestimate the openness for political change among voters, according to research published on 10 April in the open access journal PLOS ONE.

April 10, 2013 - According to animal scientists, farmers could further protect the environment by breeding chickens with larger digestive organs. This research, published in the February issue of the Journal of Animal Science, could solve a major problem in poultry production.

In some areas, large poultry operations release nitrogen and phosphorus into the environment. These pollutants come from chicken waste, and they can cause ecological problems like algal blooms in rivers and lakes.

NEW ORLEANS, April 11, 2013 — In a classic case of turning an enemy into a friend, scientists have engineered a protein from flesh-eating bacteria to act as a molecular "superglue" that promises to become a disease fighter. And their latest results, which make the technology more versatile, were the topic of a report here today at the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- An international study found that despite widespread acceptance that mental illness is a disease that can be effectively treated, a common "backbone" of prejudice exists that unfairly paints people with conditions such as depression and schizophrenia as undesirable for close personal relationships and positions of authority.

Twelve years after a breakthrough discovery in his University of California, Berkeley, laboratory, professor of chemical engineering Jay Keasling is seeing his dream come true.

On April 11, the pharmaceutical company Sanofi will launch the large-scale production of a partially synthetic version of artemisinin, a chemical critical to making today's front-line antimalaria drug, based on Keasling's discovery.