Body

A new University of Alberta study shows that busy beavers are helping Canada geese get an earlier start when the birds fly home and begin spring nesting.

Ponds in Alberta where beavers were active tended to result in earlier thaw of winter snowpack, giving the geese a better chance at reproductive success, according to the study, published recently in Mammalian Biology.

The study is the first to link beavers to early season nesting habits of Canada geese in a Northern climate.

Government limits on mold toxins present naturally in grain crops should be expanded to include so-called "masked mycotoxins" that change from harmless to potentially harmful forms in the body, a new study concludes. It appears in ACS' journal Chemical Research in Toxicology.

HOUSTON - Researchers have identified a pivotal protein in a cellular transformation that makes a cancer cell more resistant to treatment and more capable of growing and spreading, making it an inviting new target for drug development.

Additionally, the international team led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center found the cancer drug sunitinib potentially has a new role in treating triple-negative, claudin-low breast cancer, a particularly resistant version of a type of cancer that is already difficult to treat.

Street lamps, traffic lights and lighting from homes are causing a rise in our night-time light levels. For some time now, scientists have suspected that artificial light in our towns and cities at night could affect plants, animals and us, humans, too. Studies, however, that have tested this influence directly are few.

A new discovery promises to allow expanded use of a mainstay biological pest control method, which avoids the health, environmental and pest-resistance concerns of traditional insecticides, scientists are reporting. The advance toward broadening applicability of the so-called sterile insect technique (SIT) appears in the journal ACS Synthetic Biology.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Triple-negative breast cancers are more biologically diverse than previously believed and classification should be expanded to reflect this heterogeneity, according to University of North Carolina researchers.

The Microsoft Kinect game controller could cut the US healthcare bill by up to $30 billion by allowing physicians and other medics to interact with patients remotely so reducing the number of hospital visits and the associated risk of infection.

Classroom rosters combined with human-networking theory may give a clearer picture of just how infectious diseases such as influenza can spread through a closed group of people, and even through populations at large. Using high-school schedule data for a community of students, teachers, and staff, Penn State University's Marcel Salathé, an assistant professor of biology, and Timo Smieszek, a post-doctoral researcher, have developed a low-cost but effective method to determine how to focus disease-control strategies based on which individuals are most likely to spread the infection.

Researchers have shown that part of Australia's rich plant diversity was wiped out by the ice ages, proving that extinction, instead of evolution, influences biodiversity.

The research led by the University of Melbourne and University of Tasmania has shown that plant diversity in South East Australia was as rich as some of the most diverse places in the world, and that most of these species went extinct during the ice ages, probably about one million years ago.

The team's work was published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

PHILADELPHIA — Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine have discovered that a protein called Jagged-1 stimulates human stem cells to differentiate into bone-producing cells. This protein could help both human and animal patients heal from bone fractures faster and may form the basis of treatments for a rare metabolic condition called Alagille syndrome.

HOUSTON – (Feb.12, 2013) – New findings by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health may help identify situations in which smokers who are trying to quit are at a higher risk of relapse.

Cancer drugs should kill tumors, not encourage their spread. But new evidence suggests that an otherwise promising class of drugs may actually increase the risk of tumors spreading to bone, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The drugs, IAP antagonists, block survival signals that many cancer cells rely on to stay alive. Working in mice, the investigators found that targeting the same protein that makes tumors vulnerable to death also overactivates cells called osteoclasts, which are responsible for tearing down bone.

Using underwater video cameras to record fish feeding on South Pacific coral reefs, scientists have found that herbivorous fish can be picky eaters – a trait that could spell trouble for endangered reef systems.

Montréal, February 13, 2013 – Since the beginning of time, living organisms have developed ingenious mechanisms to monitor their environment. As part of an international study, a team of researchers has adapted some of these natural mechanisms to detect specific molecules such as cocaine more accurately and quickly. Their work may greatly facilitate the rapid screening—less than five minutes—of many drugs, infectious diseases, and cancers.

Researchers should study how people's social and personal norms are influenced by behavior and use their insights to help governments promote pro-environmental actions, a distinguished group of scholars writes in the March issue of BioScience. The authors maintain that effective policies induce not only short-term changes in behavior but also long-term changes in norms. More effective management of social norms will be necessary, they write, to persuade the public to accept the inconvenience and expense of many environmental policies.