Body

Good pollen makes bees hot, biologists at UC San Diego have found. Wasps warm up too when they find protein-rich meat, a separate experiment has shown.

In both cases warmer flight muscles likely speed the insects' trips home, allowing them to quickly exploit a valuable resource before competitors arrive, the researchers report in separate studies, published this month in two scientific journals.

Arlington, VA (July 10, 2008) – A third of reef-building corals around the world are threatened with extinction, according to the first-ever comprehensive global assessment to determine their conservation status. The study findings were published today by Science Express.

Leading coral experts joined forces with the Global Marine Species Assessment (GMSA) – a joint initiative of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Conservation International (CI) – to apply the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria to this important group of marine species.

Jülich, 11 July 2008 – A well-nursed prejudice in scholarly communication is that researchers avoid journalists and are disappointed with the coverage when they do have contact with the media. A current study in the specialist journal Science shows the opposite to be true: more than half of the researchers questioned described their contact with journalists as predominantly good. Four out of ten found coverage in the public-sector beneficial to their career. The idea of the "ivory tower of science" can therefore no longer be upheld.

Scientists and journalists get along much better than the anecdotal 'horror stories' would lead us to believe, according to new research published today in the journal Science, which has found that 57% of researchers were 'mostly pleased' with their media interaction, while only 6% percent were 'mostly dissatisfied'.

MADISON - Once upon a time in the world of science, sharing your work with the press was heresy.

Journalists, according to the common wisdom, would get it wrong, your research would be distorted, and your colleagues would see you as little more than a shameless grandstander. Scientist popularizers such as the late Carl Sagan, a master of adroit science communication, were excoriated by some of their colleagues for the questionable practice of trying to make science accessible.

Imagine trying to figure out how your car's power train works from just a few of its myriad components: It would be nearly impossible. Scientists have long faced a similar challenge in understanding cells' tiny powerhouses — called "mitochondria" — from scant knowledge of their molecular parts.

Keeping the genome stable is a "sister act" of matched chromatids – the pairs of the double helix DNA molecule that exist during the chromosome duplication in the S phase of the cell cycle.

ORLANDO, Florida – Cool, dry air flowing between the athlete and their football pads reduces core body temperature and heart rate dramatically, thereby reducing the likelihood of heat-related illness, a study released today at the 2008 American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine Annual Meeting at JW Marriott Orlando Grande Lakes shows. The study found that air forced under the uniform, rather than misted, cool air blown on to the uniform, could be a helpful measure to avoid heat-related illness in football players.

ORLANDO, Florida – With an estimated 80,000 Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) tears happening each year in the United States (Source: American Journal of Sports Medicine 2006 ; 9:1512-1532), including recently to famed golfer, Tiger Woods, choosing the best replacement ligament for surgery is one key to success.

By injecting purified stem cells isolated from adult skeletal muscle, researchers have shown they can restore healthy muscle and improve muscle function in mice with a form of muscular dystrophy. Those muscle-building stem cells were derived from a larger pool of so-called satellite cells that normally associate with mature muscle fibers and play a role in muscle growth and repair.

BOSTON – July 10, 2008 – Researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center have demonstrated for the first time that transplanted muscle stem cells can both improve muscle function in animals with a form of muscular dystrophy and replenish the stem cell population for use in the repair of future muscle injuries.

PHILADELPHIA – Among patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer, the addition of hormone therapy following vaccine treatment improved overall survival compared with either treatment alone or when the vaccine followed hormone treatment, according to recent data published in the July 15 Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Scientists have identified about two dozen genes that control embryonic stem cell fate. The genes may either prod or restrain stem cells from drifting into a kind of limbo, they suspect. The limbo lies between the embryonic stage and fully differentiated, or specialized, cells, such as bone, muscle or fat.

By knowing the genes and proteins that control a cell's progress toward the differentiated form, researchers may be able to accelerate the process – a potential boon for the use of stem cells in therapy or the study of some degenerative diseases, the scientists say.

T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL)

DALLAS – July 10, 2008 – UT Southwestern Medical Center plastic surgeons and specialists in diabetes, neurology, pain management and rehabilitation are launching a cutting-edge study of peripheral nerve surgery to alleviate long-standing pain and numbness in patients with diabetic neuropathy.