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Researchers at UC San Diego who last year genetically engineered bacteria to keep track of time by turning on and off fluorescent proteins within their cells have taken another step toward the construction of a programmable genetic sensor. The scientists recently synchronized these bacterial "genetic clocks" to blink in unison and engineered the bacterial genes to alter their blinking rates when environmental conditions change.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - How did the lemurs, flying foxes and narrow-striped mongooses get to the large, isolated island of Madagascar sometime after 65 million years ago?

A pair of scientists say their research confirms the longstanding idea that the animals hitched rides on natural rafts blown out to sea.

PHILADELPHIA –- Biologists at the University of Pennsylvania studying the processes of evolution appear to have resolved a longstanding conundrum: How can organisms be robust against the effects of mutations yet simultaneously adaptable when the environment changes?

The short answer, according to University of Pennsylvania biologist Joshua B. Plotkin, is that these two requirements are often not contradictory and that an optimal level of robustness maintains the phenotype in one environment but also allows adaptation to environmental change.

The air in some school classrooms may contain higher levels of extremely small particles of pollutants — easily inhaled deep into the lungs — than polluted outdoor air, scientists in Australia and Germany are reporting in an article in ACS' semi-monthly journal Environmental Science & Technology.

In recent years, there has been a large increase in the prevalence of overweight and obese women of childbearing age, with approximately 51% of non-pregnant women ages 20 to 39 being classified as overweight or obese.

A new article published in the journal Nursing for Women's Health finds that obesity in pregnant women is associated with pregnancy complications, birth defects, as well as a greater risk of childhood and adult obesity in infants born to obese mothers.

Many American women are prescribed estrogen to combat the negative effects of menopause, such as bone loss and mood swings. Now, new evidence from a Tel Aviv University study suggests that hormone replacement therapy might also protect them ― and younger women ― from schizophrenia as well.

For brain cells to communicate, the contacts to each other must function. The protein molecule neuroligin-1 plays an important role in this as it stimulates the necessary maturation processes at the contact sites (synapses) of the nerves. A synaptic maturation disorder is possibly involved in the development of autism. Dr. Thomas Dresbach and his team from the Institute for Anatomy and Cell Biology at the University of Heidelberg, in cooperation with the study group led by Professor Dr. Thomas Kuner at the same institute and Professor Dr.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., JANUARY 2010 -- The widespread use of so-called fertility drugs, not just high-tech laboratory procedures, likely plays a larger role than previously realized in the growing problem of premature births in the United States, because these drugs cause a high percentage of multiple births, the March of Dimes said today.

When a company wants to appoint a new CEO for strategic changes, they would be better off in the long term by promoting someone from inside the company rather than hiring someone from the outside, according to a new study from Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business.

The study, "Once an Outsider, Always an Outsider? CEO Origin, Strategic Change and Firm Performance," has been accepted for publication in Strategic Management Journal and was co-authored by Anthea Zhang, the Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Associate Professor of Management at Rice.

Domestic dogs have followed their own evolutionary path, twisting Darwin's directive "survival of the fittest" to their own needs -- and have proved him right in the process, according to a new study by biologists Chris Klingenberg, of the University of Manchester and Abby Drake, of the College of the Holy Cross in the US.

Parents should use toothpastes that contain fluoride with a minimum concentration of 1,000 parts per million to prevent tooth decay in their children, says a new report. Preventing tooth decay can help reduce the need for extensive and costly dental treatments, including extractions.

But the authors, in a second related study, suggest that parents concerned about the risk of fluorosis – the discolouration or mottling of the teeth caused by excessive fluoride ingestion – should consult their dentist to discuss the benefits and risks.

Householders in the UK should be looking beyond their own garden fence to protect vulnerable British wildlife, according to scientists at the University of Leeds.

To encourage urban biodiversity, neighbours should co-ordinate their gardening efforts to create a network of interlinking habitats where birds, bees and mammals can flourish.

New research suggests a family of widely used cholesterol-lowering drugs might help protect individuals from serious illness following bacterial infection, including the pneumococcal infections that pose a deadly threat to those with sickle cell disease.

In the largest national survey of its kind, researchers from UCLA and UC San Diego measured medical students' attitudes and beliefs about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and found that three-quarters of them felt conventional Western medicine would benefit by integrating more CAM therapies and ideas.

The findings will be published in the online issue of Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (eCAM) on January 20, 2010.

Heidelberg, 19 January 2010 - Although they are present almost everywhere, on land and sea, a group of related bacteria in the superphylum Planctomycetes-Verrucomicrobia-Chlamydiae, or PVC, have remained in relative obscurity ever since they were first described about a decade ago. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, have discovered that these poorly-studied bacteria possess proteins thought to exist only in eukaryotes – organisms whose cells have a nucleus.