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Scientists at the University of Minnesota have developed a new way to study mice that better mimics the immune system of adult humans and which could significantly improve ways to test potential therapeutics. Published online today in the journal Nature, the researchers describe the limitations of laboratory mice for immunology research and reveal the benefits of what they are calling "dirty mice."

Bacteria possess the ability to take up DNA from their environment, a skill that enables them to acquire new genes for antibiotic resistance or to escape the immune response. Scientists have now mapped the core set of genes that are consistently controlled during DNA uptake in strep bacteria, and they hope the finding will allow them to cut off the microbes' ability to survive what doctors and nature can throw at them.

MADISON, Wis. -- Mild-mannered Dr. Jekyll and malicious Mr. Hyde were opposite aspects of the same man, and their story ended in tragedy because the two couldn't peacefully coexist.

Most materials, too, are capable of being only one thing at a time, but a team of engineers and physicists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have created an entirely new material in which completely contradictory properties can coexist.

The compound, which the researchers described in a study published April 20 by the journal Nature, is a polar metal.

SEATTLE AND NEW ORLEANS - Dr. Philip Greenberg, head of immunology and a member of the Clinical Research Division at Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and a leader in cancer immunology, will describe how he and colleagues are genetically engineering T cells to seek out cancer cells, penetrate their defenses and kill them.

An international team, including researchers in France at Inserm, CNRS and the University of Strasbourg, brought together at IGBMC is lifting the veil on the molecular mechanisms causing heart dysfunctions in myotonic dystrophy, a genetic disease affecting one person in 8,000. This new study, published this week in Nature Communications, could contribute to discovering a treatment.

Vaccines and therapeutics developed using mice often don't work as expected in humans. New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis points to the near-sterile surroundings of laboratory mice as a key reason.

When the researchers infected laboratory mice with the mouse equivalent of microbes that cause common infections in humans, the infections changed the animals' immune systems. The immune systems of uninfected mice resembled those of newborn humans, but the immune systems of the infected mice behaved like those of adult humans.

Older adults who met twice-weekly strength-training guidelines had lower odds of dying in a new analysis by researchers at Penn State College of Medicine, Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and Columbia University. The study is the first to demonstrate the association in a large, nationally representative sample over an extended time period, particularly in an older population.

A safer option for cleaning milking systems on dairy farms may also decrease cleaning time and cost, according to a team of Penn State engineers.

"We use very harsh chemicals in an acid-based and alkaline-based cleaning system on farms," said Robert Graves, professor emeritus of agricultural and biological engineering. "We want to minimize the hazard to the people using this stuff."

WORCESTER, MA - CRISPRainbow, a new technology using CRISPR/Cas9 developed by scientists at UMass Medical School, allows researchers to tag and track up to seven different genomic locations in live cells. This labeling system, details of which were published in Nature Biotechnology, will be an invaluable tool for studying the structure of the genome in real time.

A new species of black fly has been discovered in Indonesia on the island of Borneo. The new species, which belongs to the family Simuliidae, is described in the Journal of Medical Entomology.

A team of researchers from the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, discovered it while surveying aquatic stages of black flies in Indonesia. In total, they collected nine species, and two of them were new to science, although only one is described in the JME paper.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should lead efforts among federal partners and stakeholders to design, implement, and evaluate a multipronged, evidence-based national strategy to reduce stigma toward people with mental and substance use disorders, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Many private and public organizations in the U.S.

The negative health effects of consuming large amounts of fructose could impact several generations, according to researchers at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.

The UTMB study found that when pregnant mice only drink water sweetened with fructose, a common sweetener in foods and beverages, their offspring have several more risk factors for heart disease, compared with mice who only drank water throughout pregnancy. These findings were recently published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

To what degree does the excess rate of death in individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD) happen because of a predisposition in the person who develops AUD compared with the direct effect of the AUD itself?

That's the question Kenneth S. Kendler, M.D., of Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, and coauthors examined using Swedish registry information for members of the general population and half-siblings, full-siblings and monozygotic twins discordant (differing) on AUD, according to a new article published online by JAMA Psychiatry.

Assessing certain weight control practices and eating behaviors after bariatric surgery can significantly influence the amount of weight loss after surgery, according to a study published online by JAMA Surgery.

In a study published online by JAMA Cardiology, Fredrik Björck, M.D., of Umea University, Umea, Sweden and colleagues evaluated the efficacy and safety of well-managed warfarin therapy in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation.