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Embryos that are selected out as abnormal can still undergo chromosomal modifications, says Ms Tsvia Frumkin from the Racine IVF unit at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Centre in Israel.

These findings mean that the results of preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) for chromosomal abnormalities were not always reliable and should be interpreted with caution.

25 million people are living with schizophrenia in low and middle income countries and over two-thirds of them are not receiving any treatment.

In the first large-scale epidemiological study evaluating elevator-related injuries in children throughout the United States, researchers report that children up to two years of age had the greatest percentage (28.6%) of elevator-related injuries.

Genes account for only 2.5 percent of DNA in the human genetic blueprint, yet diseases can result not only from mutant genes but from mutations of other DNA that controls genes. University of Utah researchers report they have developed a faster, less expensive technique for mutating those large, non-gene stretches of DNA.

How social or altruistic behavior evolved has been a central and hotly debated question, particularly by those researchers engaged in the study of social insect societies of ants, bees and wasps.

In these groups, this question of what drives altruism also becomes critical to further understanding of how ancestral or primitive social organizations (with hierarchies and dominance fights, and a poorly developed division of labor) evolve to become the more highly sophisticated networks found in some eusocial insect collectives called “superorganisms.”

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Akron have created synthetic “gecko tape” with four times the sticking power of the real thing.

The researchers describe a process for making polymer surfaces covered with carbon nanotube hairs. The nanotubes imitate the thousands of microscopic hairs on a gecko’s footpad, which form weak bonds with whatever surface the creature touches, allowing it to “unstick” itself simply by shifting its foot.

Many of the areas of the human genome previously thought to be deserts are in fact teeming with life.

Most known human genes in the genome map are still incompletely annotated, says Professor Alexandre Reymond, from the Centre for Integrative Genomics, University of Lausanne, Switzerland and the Department of Genetic Medicine, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.

A gene responsible for the single most common cause of hearing loss among white adults, otosclerosis, has been identified for the first time. Ms Melissa Thys, from the Department of Medical Genetics, University of Antwerp, Belgium, said that this finding may be a step towards new treatments for otosclerosis, which affects approximately 1 in 250 people.

A team of LLNL researchers has conceptually proven that a three-in-one machine, or “universal point detection system,” that can detect explosive, chemical and biological agents all at the same time, can be achieved, said George Farquar, a postdoctoral fellow and physical chemist at the LLNL’s Glenn T. Seaborg Institute.Audrey Martin adjusts the lens stack of SPAMS.

With a technology transfer agreement announced today, the first compact proton therapy system – one that would fit in any major cancer center and cost a fifth as much as a full-scale machine – is one step closer to reality.

Proton therapy is considered the most advanced form of radiation therapy available, but size and cost have limited the technology’s use to only six cancer centers nationwide.Compact proton radiotherapy treatment conceptIllustration by Steven Hawkins

Scientists at University College Cork have discovered that probiotic bacteria can protect against bacterial infection. The work was carried out in the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre (APC) in UCC.

The APC, funded by Science Foundation Ireland, was set up investigate the beneficial roles of the bacteria found in the gastro-intestine of healthy humans.

Using a new computational method called NetworKIN, researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital, MIT and EMBL can now use biological networks to better identify relationships between molecules, including regulation of protein networks that will ultimately help to target human disease.

Rare, previously undetectable drug-resistant forms of HIV have been identified by Yale School of Medicine researcher Michael Kozal, M.D., using an innovative genome sequencing technology that quickly detects rare viral mutations.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have successfully cultured human hematopoietic stem cells from fat tissue, suggesting another important source of cells for patients undergoing radiation therapy for blood cancers.

Adipose tissue has the ability to rapidly expand or contract in accordance with nutritional constraints. In so doing, it requires rapid adjustment in its blood supply and supporting connective tissue, or stroma.

New research from Colorado State University shows that the function of all genes in mammals is based on circadian – or daily – rhythms. The study refutes the current theory that only 10 percent to 15 percent of all genes were affected by nature’s clock.