Body

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3, 2014 — They've alleviated pain, saved crops and blasted into space, to name just a few of their long list of accomplishments. The American Chemical Society's Reactions YouTube series (formerly Bytesize Science) is celebrating Black History Month with a new video featuring five black chemists who changed the world. The video is available at http://youtu.be/Im_17N_JVAE.

BALTIMORE, MD (February 3, 2014) –Those two crooked beady eyes peeking out of a the shell do more than just help blue crabs spot food in the murky waters of the Chesapeake Bay. They also produce important hormones responsible for the growth and development of a crab from an adolescent into a full-fledged adult. Scientists at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology in Maryland recently discovered a new hormone in those eyestalks responsible for forming body parts that make it possible for female crabs to mate and raise young.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers at Oregon State University have discovered a genetic function that helps one of the most important "tumor suppressor" genes to do its job and prevent cancer.

Finding ways to maintain or increase the effectiveness of this gene – called Grp1-associated scaffold protein, or Grasp – could offer an important new avenue for human cancer therapies, scientists said.

It's not only what's inside the nuptial gift that a potential suitor brings to a female Paratrechalea ornata spider that counts. It's the whole package, white silk wrappings and all, that can give one male spider the edge over another. So say Mariana Trillo, Valentina Melo-González and María José Albo of the Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas Clemente Estable in Uruguay, who carried out the first study to look at the role of silk wrappings during the courtship and mating of this South American semi-aquatic spider.

Bethesda, MD (Feb. 3, 2014) — Children newly diagnosed with Crohn's disease may benefit from early treatment with the biologic drugs known as anti-TNF-α agents, according to a new study in Gastroenterology1, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association.

Some introduced (i.e. non-native) plants become abundant, threaten species richness and the well-functioning of ecosystems, the economy, or health (plant invasion). Environmental policies that attempt to restrict the expansion of non-native species are based on a consensus among scientific experts that invasions are a serious environmental problem.

By simulating the environment when corn was first exploited by people and then domesticated, Smithsonian scientists discovered that corn's ancestor; a wild grass called teosinte, may have looked more like corn then than it does today. The fact that it looked more like corn under past conditions may help to explain how teosinte came to be selected by early farmers who turned it into one of the most important staple crops in the world.

February 2, 2014, Shenzhen, China - Researchers from Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fisheries Sciences, BGI-Shenzhen and other institutes have successfully decoded the first genome of a flatfish - half-smooth tongue sole (Cynoglossus semilaevis), providing insights into ZW sex chromosome evolution and adaptation to a benthic lifestyle. The data generated in this project also lay foundation on the genetic breeding of tongue sole. The latest study has been published online today in Nature Genetics.

BOSTON -- A new microscopy method could enable scientists to generate snapshots of dozens of different biomolecules at once in a single human cell, a team from the Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University reported Sunday in Nature Methods.

Such images could shed light on complex cellular pathways and potentially lead to new ways to diagnose disease, track its prognosis, or monitor the effectiveness of therapies at a cellular level.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. (February 3, 2014) – Women that are pregnant may want to take extra precaution around those that are sniffling and sneezing this winter. According to a new study published today, the more common colds and viral infections a woman has during pregnancy, the higher the risk her baby will have asthma.

A group of prominent healthcare experts including bioethicists, pharmacists, policymakers and cancer specialists have proposed concrete steps for preventing and managing a nightmare scenario that is becoming all too common: shortages of life-saving drugs.

In a study to be presented on Feb. 6 in an oral plenary session at 8 a.m. CST, at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting™, in New Orleans, researchers will report that Cesarean deliveries reviews and best practices implementation are effective to provide optimal care by an appropriate management of medical interventions, leading to a significant reduction of cesarean deliveries and neonatal morbidity.

In a study to be presented on Feb. 6 at 8:15 a.m. CST, at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting ™, in New Orleans, researchers will report findings that recommend expectant monitoring instead of immediate delivery for women with gestational hypertension or preeclampsia between 34 and 37 weeks of pregnancy.

In a study to be presented on Feb. 6 at 9 a.m. CST, at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting™, in New Orleans, researchers will report that noninvasive prenatal testing detected 83.2 percent of chromosomal abnormalities normally picked up by invasive diagnostic testing strategies, such as chorionic villus sampling (CVS) or amniocentesis. Noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) using cell free DNA provides accurate screening for the common trisomies, including trisomy 13 (Patau syndrome), 18 (Edwards syndrome), and 21 (Down syndrome).

In a study to be presented on Feb. 6 at 3:15 p.m. CST, at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting™, in New Orleans, researchers will report that cervicovaginal (CV) microbiota differs in the late second and early third trimester in women destined to have a preterm birth.

The study tested vaginal swabs from pregnant women in the late second trimester (20-24 weeks) and early third trimester (24-28) weeks of pregnancy, and compared the CV biospecimens of women who ultimately had a preterm birth to those who had a term birth.