Body

LA JOLLA, CA—January 12, 2010—In 1993 researchers discovered a chemical compound in a sponge off Palau, an island nation in the Pacific Ocean, that has shown anticancer, antibacterial, and antifungal pharmaceutical promise. But that wasn't its greatest allure, at least not for chemists.

Philadelphia, Jan. 12, 2010– Studying genes that regulate early heart development in animals, scientists have solved a puzzle about one gene's role, finding that it acts in concert with a related gene. Their finding contributes to understanding how the earliest stages of heart development may go awry, resulting in congenital heart defects in humans.

PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University's Philip R. LeDuc and his collaborators in Massachusetts and Taiwan have discovered a new function of a protein that could ultimately unlock the mystery of how these workhorses of the body play a central role in the mechanics of biological processes in people.

Vancouver, BC – As agricultural land becomes increasingly valuable, the need to maximize its utilization increases and decisions about what crops to plant and where, become paramount.

The sunflower family includes a number of valuable food crops, with sunflower seed production alone valued at about $14 billion annually. Yet the sunflower family is the only one of a handful of economically important plant families where a reference genome is not available to enable the breeding of crops better suited to their growing environment or consumers tastes.

New research has found giving up caffeine does not relieve tinnitus and acute caffeine withdrawal might add to the problem. This is the first study of its kind to look at the effect of caffeine consumption on tinnitus.

The study, by the Centre for Hearing and Balance Studies at Bristol University and supported by a grant from Deafness Research UK, is published online in the International Journal of Audiology.

One year in to a project to save one of the UK's top sites for pondlife, amazing new species are being revealed for the first time.

Scientists from Queen Mary, University of London working with Dorset Wildlife Trust have discovered an astonishing variety of minute aquatic organisms, so small as to be invisible to the naked eye.

Forests in northern areas are stunted, verging on the edge of survival. It has been anticipated that climate change improves their growth conditions. A study published last week in Forest Ecology and Management journal shows that due to their genetic characteristics trees are unable to properly benefit from the lengthening growing season. Furthermore, the researchers were surprised to find that the mortality of established trees considerably promotes the adaptation of forests to the changing environment.

RENO, Nev. – Butterfly populations in California are declining and, in some cases, moving to higher elevations in the Sierra Nevada due to climate change and loss of habitat, according to a study authored by biologist Matthew Forister, a University of Nevada, Reno assistant professor in the College of Science.

An orchid researcher based on the island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean and collaborating with researchers at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew) has used motion sensitive night cameras to capture the first known occurrence of a cricket functioning as a pollinator of flowering plants. Not only is this the first time this behaviour has been documented in a member of the Orthoptera order of insects – who are better known for eating plants – but the 'raspy cricket' is also entirely new to science.

Cancer of the gullet, or oesophagus, is one of the ten most common cancers in the Western world, and there have been recent alarming increases in the number of cases each year in the US and UK. There is no good treatment, and sufferers frequently face a short, painful battle which ends all too quickly in death. Many of the cancers diagnosed are in people with a long history of heartburn.

(Jan. 12, 2009) – HOBOKEN, NJ – According to the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse, about half of the U.S. population will have hemorrhoids by the age of 50. While the most common prescription to treat hemorrhoids is over-the-counter remedies, most patients do not report symptoms of acute hemorrhoidal attacks to their doctor until they are in severe distress, including bleeding.

A new study finds that methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) –responsible for several difficult-to-treat infections including blood poisoning and pneumonia and a particular problem in hospitals – occurs in distinct geographical clusters across Europe, indicating that MRSA is being diffused by patients moving between hospitals rather than spreading freely in the community. The study, published in this week's PLoS Medicine, used an interactive Web tool to map different strains of the Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) bacterium across the continent.

HOUSTON - A growth factor that is a common target of cancer drugs also plays an important role in the heart's response to stress, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report online this week in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

The genome of a model plant related to peach, cherry and cultivated strawberry has been sequenced by a consortium of international researchers that includes scientists with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS).

The scientists announced the sequencing of the genome of woodland strawberry over the weekend at the Plant and Animal Genome Conference in San Diego, Ca. The project was funded by Roche Diagnostics.

California butterflies are reeling from a one-two punch of climate change and land development, says an unprecedented analysis led by UC Davis butterfly expert Arthur Shapiro.

The new analysis, scheduled to be published online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, gives insights on how a major and much-studied group of organisms is reacting to the Earth's warming climate.