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The most ambitious genetic study ever undertaken on bird evolution has found that almost all modern birds diversified after the dinosaurs became extinct 66 million years ago.

"The popular view until now has been that the extraordinary diversity of birds began during the dinosaur age but we found little support for this," said Associate Professor Simon Ho, from the University of Sydney who led a major component of the research looking at evolutionary timescale.

People with a high level of education who complain about memory lapses have a higher risk for stroke, according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Stroke.

"Studies have shown how stroke causes memory complaints," said Arfan Ikram, M.D., associate professor of neuroepidemiology at Erasmus University Rotterdam in The Netherlands. "Given the shared underlying vascular pathology, we posed the reverse question: 'Do memory complaints indicate an increased risk of strokes?'"

Children with public insurance waited longer after initial evaluation for sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) to undergo polysomnography (PSG, the gold standard diagnostic test) and also waited longer after PSG to have surgery to treat the condition with adenotonsillectomy (AT) compared with children who were privately insured, according to a report published online by JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery.

EAST LANSING, Mich. - It's well known that chemotherapy helps fight cancer. It's also known that it wreaks havoc on normal, healthy cells.

Michigan State University scientists are closer to discovering a possible way to boost healthy cell production in cancer patients as they receive chemotherapy. By adding thymine - a natural building block found in DNA - into normal cells, they found it stimulated gene production and caused them to multiply.

MADISON, Wis. -- Frederick Crane was a researcher under David E. Green in the mid-1950s, during the early days of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Enzyme Institute, when he made his defining discovery.

The lab group was on a mission to determine, bit by bit, how mitochondria -- the power plants of cells -- generate the energy required to sustain life. What Crane found, a compound called coenzyme Q, was a missing piece of the puzzle and became a major part of the legacy of mitochondrial research at UW-Madison. But it was no accident.

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) -- With more and more rainforest giving way to pasture and grazing land every year, the practice of cattle ranching in the Amazon has serious implications on a global scale. At the same time, however, it provides a degree of socioeconomic flexibility for Amazonian smallholders who simply can't survive on what the forest or agriculture provide.

BOSTON (December 11, 2014) -- A new study from epidemiologists at Tufts University School of Medicine helps to identify communities with the greatest public health need in Massachusetts for resources relating to HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C. The study, published today in PLOS ONE, used geospatial techniques to identify hotspots for deaths related to HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C. The findings show large disparities in death rates exist across race and ethnicity in Massachusetts.

BALTIMORE, December 11, 2014 - Insilico Medicine along with scientists from Vision Genomics and Howard University shed light on AMD disease, introducing the opportunity for eventual diagnostic and treatment options.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Nature abhors a vacuum, which may explain the findings of a new study showing that bird evolution exploded 65 million years ago when nearly everything else on earth -- dinosaurs included -- died out.

The study is part of an ambitious project, published in today's issue of the journal Science, in which hundreds of scientists worldwide have decoded the avian genome.

Lincoln, Neb., Dec. 11, 2104 -- A University of Nebraska-Lincoln researcher has contributed to discoveries about bird evolution as part of a new study that sequenced the complete genomes of 45 avian species.

Published Dec. 11 in the journal Science, the study found that avian genomes -- the complete archive of genetic material present in cells -- have exhibited surprisingly slow rates of evolution when compared with their mammalian counterparts.

The fruits and vegetables provided at school deliver an important dietary boost to low income adolescents, according to Meghan Longacre, PhD and Madeline Dalton, PhD of Dartmouth Hitchcock's Norris Cotton Cancer Center and The Hood Center for Children and Families. In a study released in Preventive Medicine, Longacre and Dalton found that fruit and vegetable intake was higher among low income adolescents on days when they consumed meals at school compared to days when low income adolescent were not in school.

SALT LAKE CITY, Dec. 11, 2014 - University of Utah researchers ran biochemical analysis and computer simulations of a livestock virus to discover a likely and exotic mechanism to explain the replication of related viruses such as Ebola, measles and rabies. The mechanism may be a possible target for new treatments within a decade.

(SALT LAKE CITY) - Examination of DNA from 21 primate species - from squirrel monkeys to humans - exposes an evolutionary war against infectious bacteria over iron that circulates in the host's bloodstream. Supported by experimental evidence, these findings, published in Science on Dec. 12, demonstrate the vital importance of an increasingly appreciated defensive strategy called nutritional immunity.

How birds evolved to have characteristics including feathers, flight and song is revealed with new clarity in a major study of their family tree.

The international study charts a burst of evolution that took place after the mass extinction of dinosaurs, 66 million years ago. This step-change gave rise to nearly all of the species of birds that we see on the planet today - more than 10,000 varieties.

Two penguin genomes have been sequenced and analyzed for the first time in the open access, open data journal GigaScience. Timely for the holiday season, the study reveals insights into how these birds have been able to adapt to the cold and hostile Antarctic environment.