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SALT LAKE CITY, May 5, 2014 – When University of Utah biologists set out cotton balls treated with a mild pesticide, wild finches in the Galapagos Islands used the cotton to help build their nests, killing parasitic fly maggots to protect baby birds. The researchers say the self-fumigation method may help endangered birds and even some mammals.

"We are trying to help birds help themselves," says biology professor Dale Clayton, senior author of a study outlining the new technique. The findings were published online May 5, 2014, in the journal Current Biology.

Researchers have found a way to protect threatened Darwin's finches on the Galápagos Islands from deadly parasitic nest flies in a manner that's as simple as it is ingenious: by offering the birds insecticide-treated cotton for incorporation into their nests. The study, reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on May 5, shows that the birds will readily weave the protective fibers in. What's more, the researchers find that just one gram of treated cotton is enough to keep a nest essentially parasite-free.

Turtles are more closely related to birds and crocodilians than to lizards and snakes, according to a study from Dartmouth, Yale and other institutions that examines one of the most contentious questions in evolutionary biology.

The findings appear in the journal Evolution & Development. A PDF of the study is available on request.

New Rochelle, NY, May 5, 2014—Recent articles in the scientific literature and mass media that question the use of testosterone (T) therapy to treat T deficiency, or "low T," and assert the cardiovascular risks of T therapy, are flawed, according to a provocative Guest Editorial in Journal of Men's Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Men's Health website at http://www.liebertpub.com/jmh.

If wine leaves a bitter, cotton-like coating on the tongue, neither the sense of taste nor the sense of smell is responsible. The traditional oak barrel character, also called barrique character, is perceived via the trigeminal nerve, which is responsible for, among other things, pain and temperature perception. This is reported in the journal "Chemical Senses" by a research team headed by Prof Dr Dr Dr Hanns Hatt from the Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology at the Ruhr-Universität.

Patients with severed taste nerve do still taste barrique flavour

COLUMBUS, Ohio—In the first study of its kind, researchers have determined that spending time with horses eases symptoms of Alzheimer's dementia.

A collaboration between The Ohio State University, an equine therapy center and an adult daycare center found that people with Alzheimer's were able to safely groom, feed and walk horses under supervision—and the experience buoyed their mood and made them less likely to resist care or become upset later in the day.

With accelerating development of personalized cancer treatments matched to a patient's DNA sequencing, proponents say frontline physicians increasingly need help to maneuver through the complex genomic landscape to find the most effective, individualized therapy.

Scientists from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have identified a benign bacterium that shows promise in blocking Salmonella from colonizing raw tomatoes. Their research is published ahead of print in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

When applied to Salmonella-contaminated tomato plants in a field study, the bacterium, known as Paenibacillus alvei, significantly reduced the concentration of the pathogen compared to controls.

Leona Cuttler, MD, knew in her core that the simple act of adding an outside eye could dramatically improve pediatric care.

Today, a study of more than 16,000 patient visits published online in the journal Pediatrics proves Cuttler's thesis correct. The lead investigator on the research project, Cuttler succumbed to cancer late last year. But her colleagues are committed to seeing its lessons disseminated across the country.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., May 5, 2014 – For the first time, scientists have a clearer understanding of how to control the appearance of a superconducting phase in a material, adding crucial fundamental knowledge and perhaps setting the stage for advances in the field of superconductivity.

Phosphate rich foods include processed cheese, Parmesan, cola, baking powder and most processed foods. Phosphates are widely used in the food industry as preservatives and pH stabilizers. When large quantities of phosphates are consumed, production of the FGF23 hormone is stimulated, which has a negative effect on the cardiovascular system. Reinhold Erben, the head of the Unit of Physiology, Pathophysiology and Biophysics at the Vetmeduni Vienna, warns that "our phosphate consumption is relevant for our state of health."

BOSTON -- Developing and testing a new anti-cancer drug can cost billions of dollars and take many years of research. Finding an effective anti-cancer medication from the pool of drugs already approved for the treatment of other medical conditions could cut a considerable amount of time and money from the process.

LEXINGTON, KY – Consumer demand for groundcover plants for residential and commercial landscapes is on the rise. Low-growing, low-maintenance groundcovers are favored not only for their aesthetic appeal, but also for their environmental contributions such as the ability to reduce storm water runoff and control weeds. Looking for sustainable alternatives to growing plants in standard plastic containers, researchers uncovered a variety of groundcover plants that they say can be successfully grown in ecofriendly "plantable" containers.

"We figured, why not allow Mother Nature to help us build what she already knows how to build," said Catherine S. Spina, an M.D.-Ph.D. candidate at Boston University, researcher at the Wyss Institute, and co-lead author of the paper.

Specifically, Wyss Institute Postdoctoral Fellow Yu-suke Torisawa and Spina packed dried bone powder into an open, ring-shaped mold the size of a coin battery, and implanted the mold under the skin on the animal's back.

A team of researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has been involved in a thorough genetic investigation based on the case of a child suffering from the Nivelon-Nivelon-Mabille Syndrome, a complex condition characterised mainly by a sexual development disorder. Following a genome analysis of the patient and parents, the scientists, led by Serge Nef, Professor of the Department of Genetic Medicine and Development in the Faculty of Medicine, have identified not only the gene, but also the protein-producing mechanism, whose malfunctioning causes the syndrome in question.