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Athens, Ga. – While pearl millet is a major food staple in some of the fastest growing regions on Earth, relatively little is known about the drought-hardy grain.

Recently, plant geneticists at the University of Georgia successfully isolated the gene that creates dwarfed varieties of pearl millet. It is the first time a gene controlling an important agronomic trait has been isolated in the pearl millet genome. Their work appeared in the March edition of the journal G3: Genes, Genomics, Genetics.

When blessed with a resource in overwhelming abundance it's generally a good idea to make valuable use of that resource. Lignocellulosic biomass is the most abundant organic material on Earth. For thousands of years it has been used as animal feed, and for the past two centuries has been a staple of the paper industry. This abundant resource, however, could also supply the sugars needed to produce advanced biofuels that can supplement or replace fossil fuels, providing several key technical challenges are met.

Performing surgery on a pregnant patient is a delicate matter. Risks to both mother and baby must be carefully weighed in every decision a surgeon makes. Recently, at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, a surgeon performed a groundbreaking robotic laparoscopic procedure on a 35-year-old pregnant patient whose cervix was too short to sustain a pregnancy.

VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtvVARBoxFw.

A research coordinated by the scientists at SISSA of Trieste has now developed and studied a numeric model of the chromosome that supports the experimental data and provides a hypothesis on the bundle's function.

The sooner a person smokes a cigarette upon waking in the morning, the more likely he or she is to acquire lung or oral cancer, according to Penn State researchers.

"We found that smokers who consume cigarettes immediately after waking have higher levels of NNAL -- a metabolite of the tobacco-specific carcinogen NNK -- in their blood than smokers who refrain from smoking a half hour or more after waking, regardless of how many cigarettes they smoke per day," said Steven Branstetter, assistant professor of biobehavioral health.

A team of researchers, led by a University of California, Davis, plant scientist, has identified a lettuce gene and related enzyme that put the brakes on germination during hot weather — a discovery that could lead to lettuces that can sprout year-round, even at high temperatures.

The study also included researchers from Arcadia Biosciences and Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, India.

A new study from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) has pieced together the last 150 years of history for one of the state's most interesting denizens: the black bear.

The Gastropoda, more commonly known as snails and slugs, are a large group of animals within the phylum Mollusca. Gastropоds species are extremely diverse in forms and sizes, ranging from microscopic to large. About 50 species of snails are currently considered to inhabit Skadar Lake, the largest on the Balkan Peninsula.

Bacteria appear to speed up their evolution by positioning specific genes along the route of expected traffic jams in DNA encoding. Certain genes are in prime collision paths for the moving molecular machineries that read the DNA code, as University of Washington scientists explain in this week's edition of Nature.

PHILADELPHIA — A new diagnostic test that uses a scientific technique known as metabolomic analysis may be a safe and easy screening method that could improve the prognosis of patients with pancreatic cancer through earlier detection.

Researchers examined the utility of metabolomic analysis as a diagnostic method for pancreatic cancer and then validated the new approach, according to study results published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

African forest elephants are being poached out of existence. A study just published in the online journal PLOS ONE and supported in part by San Diego Zoo Global shows that a staggering 62% of all forest elephants have been killed across their range in central Africa, for their ivory over the past decade. The severe decline indicates what researchers fear is the eminent extinction of this species.

Cincinnati, OH, March 29, 2013 -- Although scientific evidence suggests that vaccines do not cause autism, approximately one-third of parents continue to express concern that they do; nearly 1 in 10 parents refuse or delay vaccinations because they believe it is safer than following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) schedule. A primary concern is the number of vaccines administered, both on a single day and cumulatively over the first 2 years of life.

Researchers at Papworth Hospital, the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute have discovered why a new type of dangerous bacterial infection has become more common among people with Cystic Fibrosis around the world.

Through their ground-breaking research, the team has developed new measures to protect Cystic Fibrosis patients.

Highlights

Sometimes, little things can add up to a lot.

In short, that's the message of a research study on small dams, streams and pollution by Steve Powers, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Notre Dame's Environmental Change Initiative (ECI).

"Small dams, reservoirs and ponds trap water pollution, which provides an important benefit to water resources," Powers said. "This is especially relevant in agricultural lands of the Midwest U.S., where there are lots of small, but aging dams."