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TAMPA, Fla. (Oct. 25, 2012) - University of South Florida researchers have identified a genetic biomarker for age-related hearing loss, a major breakthrough in understanding and preventing a condition of aging that affects 30 million Americans and greatly diminishes their quality of life.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers report in the journal Developmental Cell that they have identified genes that control growth and regeneration of the intestine in the freshwater planarian Schmidtea mediterranea.

"How animals repair their internal organs after injury is not well understood," said University of Illinois cell and developmental biology professor Phillip Newmark, who led the study. "Planarian flatworms are useful models for studying this question."

A new video-article in JoVE, Journal of Visualized Experiments, details the use of a new laser-activated bio-adhesive polymer. The chitosan-based polymer, SurgiLux, was developed by scientists at the University of New South Wales. Chitosan is a polymer derived from chitin, which is found in fungal cell walls or in exoskeletons of crustaceans and insects.This molecular component allows SurgiLux to form low energy bonds between the polymer and the desired tissue when it absorbs light. The technology may soon replace traditional sutures in the clinic.

New Rochelle, NY, October 25, 2012—Targeted T-cells can seek out and destroy tumor cells that carry specific antigen markers. Two novel anti-tumor therapies that take advantage of this T-cell response are described in articles published in Human Gene Therapy, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The articles are available free on the Human Gene Therapy website at http://www.liebertpub.com/hum.

Theoretical physicists like to play with very unconventional toys. Manoel Manghi from Toulouse University in France and his colleagues have adopted a seemingly playful approach to examining what happens to a double stranded molecule of DNA when it is stretched to the breaking point, in a study about to be published in EPJ E.

Copenhagen, Denmark – Data publishers should have the option of submitting their biodiversity datasets for peer review, according to a discussion paper commissioned by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).

The proposal is among a set of recommendations made by Mark Costello and co-authors in the paper Quality assurance and Intellectual Property Rights in advancing biodiversity data publication, freely available for download through the GBIF Online Resource Centre.

Vulnerability to major depression is linked with how satisfied we are with our lives. This association is largely due to genes.

This is the main finding of a new twin study from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in collaboration with the University of Oslo. The researchers compared longitudinal information from identical and fraternal twins to determine how vulnerability to major depression is associated with dispositional (overall) lifetime satisfaction.

Researchers have identified a new means to eradicate malaria infections by rapidly killing the blood-borne Plasmodium parasites that cause the disease.

Malaria causes up to 3 million deaths each year, predominantly afflicting vulnerable people such as children under five and pregnant women, in tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Treatments are available for this disease, but the Plasmodium parasite is fast becoming resistant to the most common drugs, and health authorities say they desperately need new strategies to tackle the disease.

Giant German hippopotamuses wallowing on the banks of the Elbe are not a common sight. Yet 1.8 million years ago hippos were a prominent part of European wildlife, when mega-fauna such as woolly mammoths and giant cave bears bestrode the continent. Now palaeontologists writing in Boreas, believe that the changing climate during the Pleistocene Era may have forced Europe's hippos to shrink to pygmy sizes before driving them to warmer climes.

An electronic nose, used to detect the presence of molecules in the breath of a patient, could be used to diagnose obstructive sleep apnoea.

A new study, published online today ahead of print (25 October 2012) in the European Respiratory Journal, could make the diagnosis of the condition quick and inexpensive compared to current methods.

The gold standard used to identify sleep apnoea is an overnight sleep test. This is technically demanding, time-consuming and cost-intensive.

A large-scale study that defines the complexity of underlying mutations responsible for pancreatic cancers in more than 100 patients was published in Nature today.

The analysis represents the first report from Australia's contribution to the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC), which brings together the world's leading scientists to identify the genetic drivers behind 50 different cancer types.

• Heart cells from patients with inherited heart muscle disease can now be studied in a petri dish without risk to patients, including the possibility of testing new treatments
• Experiments performed on the cells show that the heart cell model matches that of the clinical features of arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), an inherited heart muscle disease associated with sudden cardiac death
• Landmark study published in European Heart Journal, a top ranking international peer reviewed journal

Genetics researchers at the University of Adelaide have solved a 40-year mystery for a family beset by a rare intellectual disability – and they've discovered something new about the causes of intellectual disability in the process.

While many intellectual disabilities are caused directly by a genetic mutation in the so-called "protein coding" part of our genes, the researchers found that in their case the answer laid outside the gene and in the regulation of proteins.

LA JOLLA, CA – October 24, 2012 – Millions of people with "wet" macular degeneration are prescribed a class of medication known as anti-VEGF drugs. But now scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found that a drastic reduction of VEGF activity may do more harm than good.

Most of the more than 6,000 species of frogs in the world lay their eggs in water. But many tropical frogs lay their eggs out of water. This behavior protects the eggs from aquatic predators, such as fish and tadpoles, but also increases their risk of drying out. Justin Touchon, post-doctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, discovered that climate change in Panama may be altering frogs' course of evolution.