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With policymakers and political leaders increasingly unable to combat global climate change, more scientists are considering the use of manual manipulation of the environment to slow warming's damage to the planet.

But a University of Iowa law professor believes the legal ramifications of this kind of geo-engineering need to be thought through in advance and a global governance structure put in place soon to oversee these efforts.

Taking inspiration from Mother Nature, scientists are reporting an advance toward preventing the tooth sensitivity that affects millions of people around the world. Their report on development of the substance, similar to the adhesive that mussels use to attach to rocks and other surfaces in water, appears in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Demyelinating diseases, such as multiple sclerosis (MS), are frequently associated with the progressive loss of vision. The retinal nerve damage is thought to be caused by immune system-mediated inflammation; however, other demyelinating disorders, such as Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease, do not involve the immune system, suggesting that there are other causes of retinal nerve damage. Deimination is a protein modification that is altered in patients with MS and PMD.

Instability in the composition of gut bacterial communities (dysbiosis) has been linked to common human intestinal disorders, including inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer; however, it is unclear if dysbiosis can instigate disease or if it is a consequence of the underlying disorder. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Mathias Chamaillard at the University Lille Nord de France in Lille, France, examined intestinal inflammation and tumorigenesis in a mouse model of dysbiosis.

PITTSBURGH, Jan. 2, 2013 – The presence of a certain molecule allows the immune system to effectively police tuberculosis (TB) of the lungs and prevent it from turning into an active and deadly infection, according to a new study led by researchers at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Their findings appear today in the online version of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

The western long-beaked echidna, one of the world's five egg-laying species of mammal, became extinct in Australia thousands of years ago…or did it? Smithsonian scientists and colleagues have found evidence suggesting that not only did these animals survive in Australia far longer than previously thought, but that they may very well still exist in parts of the country today. The team's findings are published in the Dec. 28, 2012 issue of the journal ZooKeys.

DARIEN, IL – A new study suggests that treatment of mild sleep-disordered breathing with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy in pregnant women with preeclampsia improves fetal activity levels, a marker of fetal well-being.

As Twelfth Night approaches and the Christmas decorations start to look increasingly congruous as the last crumbs of cake are swept away and the remnants of the turkey have finally been consumed, there is the perennial question as to what to do with the tree. Research published in the International Journal of Biomedical Nanoscience and Nanotechnology suggests that the needles of the plant Pseudotsuga menziesii, commonly known as the Douglas fir could be used to sterilize nano devices destined for medical applications.

Two new species of cichlid fish from Lake Victoria are described by biologists from Naturalis Biodiversity Center (Research Department Marine Zoology) and the Institute of Biology Leiden (Section Integrative Zoology), the Netherlands.

Elementary school students often learn that plants grow toward the light. This seems straightforward, but in reality, the genes and pathways that allow plants to grow and move in response to their environment are not fully understood. Leading plant scientists explore one of the most fundamental processes in plant biology—plant movement in response to light, water, and gravity—in a January Special Issue of the American Journal of Botany.

Certain plants and animals protect themselves against temperatures below freezing with antifreeze proteins. How the larva of the beetle Dendroides canadensis manages to withstand temperatures down to -30 degrees Celsius is reported by an international team of researchers led by Prof. Dr. Martina Havenith from the Department of Physical Chemistry II at the Ruhr-Universität in the journal PNAS.

CHICAGO – In a study that included nearly 30,000 women from Nordic countries who had filled a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) prescription during pregnancy, researchers found no significant association between use of these medications during pregnancy and risk of stillbirth, neonatal death, or postneonatal death, after accounting for factors including maternal psychiatric disease, according to a study in the January 2 issue of JAMA.

Charlottesville, VA (January 1, 2013). The January 2013 issue of Neurosurgical Focus is dedicated to the science of neurosurgical practice and is edited by Drs. Anthony L. Asher (Carolina Neurosurgery and Spine Associates & Carolinas Medical Center, Charlotte, NC), Paul C. McCormick (Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY), and Douglas Kondziolka (New York University, New York, NY).

Administering a quadruple dose of seasonal flu vaccine may help better protect HIV-infected patients from serious illness or death from influenza.

In a randomized, double-blind, controlled trial, 190 HIV-positive adults were randomly assigned to receive either a standard dose (15 mcg of antigen per strain) or a high dose (60 mcg/strain) of the influenza trivalent vaccine.

Infection control experts at The Johns Hopkins Hospital have found that a combination of robot-like devices that disperse a bleaching agent into the air and then detoxify the disinfecting chemical are highly effective at killing and preventing the spread of multiple-drug-resistant bacteria, or so-called hospital superbugs.