Body

All organisms react to different external and internal stimuli: if, for example, the hyphae fungus Sordaria macrospora is supplied with food, it produces fruiting bodies as part of its oestrous cycle. To initiate this reaction, signals have to be transmitted within the cell, which are conveyed by proteins. Physical proximity is a fundamental requirement for different proteins to be able to communicate with each other.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – As researchers continue to work toward vaccines for serious tropical diseases such as dengue fever, experts caution in a new report that such vaccines will probably cause temporary but significant spikes in the disease in the years after they are first used.

This counter-intuitive and unwanted result could lead to frustrated policy makers, a skeptical public and concerns that the vaccine is making things worse instead of better, researchers say.

Munich, Germany: The latest evidence on the potential benefits and risks of e-cigarettes has been presented this week at the European Respiratory Society's International Congress in Munich.

Electronic cigarettes have received much attention in recent years as their use has increased across Europe. As the devices are relatively new, there is little long-term evidence detailing the potential harm or benefit that these devices can cause.

During the ERS Congress, a number of abstracts will be presented on the topic. The key outcomes are revealed here:

A new blood test allowing doctors to predict which ovarian cancer patients will respond to particular types of treatment is a step closer following a new study by Manchester scientists.

Researchers from The University of Manchester and The Christie NHS Foundation Trust - both part of Manchester Cancer Research Centre - say the test could be developed and used in hospitals within the next few years.

The number of California blue whales has rebounded to near historical levels, according to new research by the University of Washington, and while the number of blue whales struck by ships is likely above allowable U.S. limits, such strikes do not immediately threaten that recovery.

This is the only population of blue whales known to have recovered from whaling – blue whales as a species having been hunted nearly to extinction.

The Glanville fritillary has long been an internationally known model species for ecology and evolutionary biology, whose population biology has been studied on the Åland Islands for more than twenty years. Now the species has become even more significant. Led by Research Professor Ilkka Hanski, the Metapopulation Research Group (MRG) at the University of Helsinki has sequenced the full genome of the Glanville fritillary together with three groups from the Institute of Biotechnology at the same university.

An international team of researchers has found that the majority of threatened species are 'invisible' when using modern methods to predict species distributions under climate change.

Using African amphibians as a case study, the researchers found that more than 90 per cent of the species listed as threatened on The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species are omitted by the most popular tools for species distribution modelling.

Caffeine therapy for apnea of prematurity has no long-term harmful effects on sleep or control of breathing, according to a new study of 201 preterm children assessed at ages 5-12, the first study in humans to examine the long-term effects of neonatal caffeine treatment on sleep regulation and ventilatory control.

PHILADELPHIA — A population-based case-control study found no association between bra wearing and increased breast cancer risk among postmenopausal women, according to research published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

The first international standards for fetal growth and newborn size have been developed by a global team led by scientists from Oxford University.

The standards depict the desirable pattern of healthy growth for all babies everywhere, regardless of their ethnicity or country of birth. They provide 3rd, 10th, 50th, 90th and 97th centile curves for the growth of a baby during pregnancy (as measured by ultrasound) and for a baby's size at birth according to gestational age (weight, length and head circumference).

World leading tobacco experts argue that a recently published World Health Organization (WHO)-commissioned review of evidence on e-cigarettes contains important errors, misinterpretations and misrepresentations putting policy-makers and the public in danger of foregoing the potential public health benefits of e-cigarettes.

The authors, writing today in the journal Addiction, analyse the WHO-commissioned Background Paper on E-cigarettes, which looks to have been influential in the recently published WHO report calling for greater regulation of e-cigarettes.

Child deaths have fallen to very low rates in all industrialised countries, but many deaths in children and adolescents are still potentially preventable, and much more could be done to cut future deaths, according to a new three-part Series on child deaths in high-income countries, published in The Lancet.

New international standards for fetal growth and newborn size provide the first accurate measurements of ideal growth and development from conception to birth. Published in The Lancet, these new standards depict a healthy pattern of growth that is desirable for all fetuses and newborns everywhere, regardless of ethnic origin.

Faced with climate change and diminishing opportunities to expand productive agricultural acreage, the world needs to invest in a global research agenda addressing farm and food systems, landscape and regional issues and institutional and policy matters if it is to meet the growing worldwide demand for food, fiber and fuel, suggests an international team of researchers.

The U.S. government is doing a better job of communicating on Twitter with people in sensitive areas like the Middle East and North Africa without the participation of media organizations, according to a study co-authored by a University of Georgia researcher.

The study looked at the U.S. State Department's use of social media and identified key actors who drive its messages to audiences around the world. In particular, it examined the role played by news media and the government in bridging the State Department communication with people domestically and internationally.