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The appearance of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere probably did not occur as a single event, but as a long series of starts and stops, according to geoscientists who investigated rock cores from the FAR DEEP project.

The Fennoscandia Arctic Russia - Drilling Early Earth Project--FAR DEEP--took place during the summer of 2007 near Murmansk in Northwest Russia.

PORTLAND, Ore. — The first federally funded report to compare children with special health care needs to children without reveals 14 percent to 19 percent of children in the United States have a special health care need and their insurance is inadequate to cover the greater scope of care they require for optimal health.

PHILADELPHIA -- A new case-control study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, shows that women who participated in at least three screening mammograms had a 49 percent lower risk for breast cancer mortality.

"Our study adds further evidence that mammography screening unambiguously reduces breast cancer mortality," said Suzie Otto, Ph.D., a senior researcher in the department of public health at the Erasmus MC at Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg's Sahlgrenska Academy have discovered a brand new tick-borne infection. Since the discovery, eight cases have been described around the world, three of them in the Gothenburg area, Sweden.

Reproductive and somatic aging use different molecular mechanisms that show little overlap between the types of genes required to keep oocytes healthy and the genes that generally extend life span, according to Coleen Murphy, Ph.D., of Princeton University, who described her new findings on oocyte aging at the American Society for Cell Biology Annual Meeting Dec. 6 in Denver.

Defective mitochondria, the energy-producing powerhouses of the cell, trigger an inherited neurodegenerative disorder that first shows itself in toddlers just as they are beginning to walk, Canadian scientists reported at the American Society for Cell Biology Annual Meeting, Dec. 6, in Denver.

The disorder, Autosomal Recessive Spastic Ataxia of Charlevoix-Saguenay (ARSACS), was first identified in the late 1970s among the descendants of a small population of 17th century French immigrants who settled in the Charlevoix and the Saguenay River regions northeast of Quebec City.

After a four-week course of the vasodilator hormone relaxin, kidney function and blood flow immediately improved in lab rats genetically altered to model polycystic kidney disease (PKD), a life-threatening genetic disorder, according to research presented on Dec. 6 at the American Society for Cell Biology Annual Meeting in Denver.

Heart disease is a major cause of death in industrialised countries, and is strongly associated with obesity and diabetes. Many scientists believe that what links these conditions is a chronic, low-grade inflammation. The current study, published in the scientific journal Cell Metabolism (December 6, 2011), supports that theory by demonstrating that a modified bile acid called INT-777 prevents atherosclerosis, the build-up of fatty plaques in the walls of arteries, and a leading cause of heart disease—and that it does so by exerting an anti-inflammatory effect.

People who carry a malfunctioning copy of a particular gene are especially good at clearing fat from their systems. The report in the December Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication, shows how the mutant gene influences metabolism in this way.

"It looks like this might be something good to have," says Jan Albert Kuivenhoven of the University Medical Center Groningen in The Netherlands, but not so fast. It remains to be seen whether the people he studied will enjoy a lower incidence of heart disease or other health benefits.

A species of ancient predator with saw-like teeth, sleek bodies and a voracious appetite for meat survived a major extinction at a time when the distant relatives of mammals ruled the earth.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- Breast cancer is on the rise and 48 percent of all breast cancers occur in women older than 65, but very few of them choose to have breast reconstruction.

A new study from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center sought to determine if breast reconstruction after mastectomy is safe for older women. The answer is yes.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Mayo Clinic in Florida is now offering kidney and pancreas transplants to HIV positive patients with advanced kidney disease and diabetes.

A study of the wolves of Yellowstone National Park recently improved predictions of how these animals will respond to environmental changes.

The study, which was partially funded by the National Science Foundation, appears in the Dec. 2, 2011 issue of Science.

New discoveries in "marine forensics" by researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) will allow federal seafood agents to genetically test blue marlin to quickly and accurately determine their ocean of origin.

Even when surgical tumor removal is combined with a heavy dose of chemotherapy or radiation, there's no guarantee that the cancer will not return. Now researchers at Tel Aviv University are strengthening the odds in favor of permanent tumor destruction — and an immunity to the cancer's return — with a new method of tumor removal.