Body

URBANA – Adding prebiotic ingredients to infant formula helps colonize the newborn's gut with a stable population of beneficial bacteria, and probiotics enhance immunity in formula-fed infants, two University of Illinois studies report.

Political Studies professor Colin Farrelly wants to see more research into remarkable examples of health – such as why some people live 100 years disease-free.

He describes the current pathology-based approach that emphasizes what causes specific diseases as "negative biology" and suggest more resources should be focused on "positive biology."

However, only a few of the yellow males in each lek get all the girls. So why do other yellow males help? The new study finds that the yellow males within leks are more closely related than males between leks. This suggests the possibility that even less successful relatives may profit from lekking with their Don Juan-like cousins.

In science, refuting a hypothesis can be as significant as proving one, all the more so in research aimed at elucidating how diseases proceed with a view toward preventing, treating, or curing them. Such a discovery can save scientists from spending precious years of effort exploring a dead end. In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Munich-based researchers refute a widely accepted hypothesis about a causative step in neurodegenerative conditions.

Boston, MA (February 26, 2012)—Bacteria live in a state of perpetual warfare, with different species battling for dominion over their competitors and when pathogen, over their infected host. New research suggests that the human pathogen Vibrio cholerae, which causes the disease cholera, kills off its microbial rivals by jabbing them with a spring-loaded poison dagger. Were it not for that defense, called the Type 6 secretion system (T6SS), V. cholerae might not out-compete its neighbors to sicken millions of people every year.

New Rochelle -- Inhaled interferon-gamma may be an effective treatment for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a chronic and progressive form of lung disease caused by excessive formation of fibrotic, or scar tissue, in the lungs, according to an article published in Journal of Aerosol Medicine and Pulmonary Drug Delivery (http://www.liebertpub.com/jamp), a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

A drug once taken by people with HIV/AIDS but long ago shelved after newer, modern antiretroviral therapies became available has now shed light on how the human body uses its natural immunity to fight the virus—work that could help uncover new targets for drugs.

A subpopulation of the immune cells targeted by HIV may play an important role in controlling viral loads after initial infection, potentially helping to determine how quickly infection will progress. In the February 29 issue of Science Translational Medicine, a team of researchers from the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), MIT and Harvard describe finding a population of HIV-specific CD4 T cells – cells traditionally thought to direct and support activities of other immune cells – that can directly kill HIV-infected cells.

BOSTON, MA – February 29, 2012 – TREM Rx, Inc., a biotechnology company with a proprietary technology platform for novel vaccines delivered to the skin, announced today the results of an in vivo preclinical study that shows, for the first time, that powerful cells of the immune system called TREMs (T Resident Effector Memory cells) prevalent in the skin can mediate a protective immune response that is far stronger than memory T cells that circulate in the bloodstream. The study was published in today's online edition of Nature and was led by TREM Rx scientific founder, Dr.

In a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease, memory problems stem from an overactive enzyme that shuts off genes related to neuron communication, a new study says.

When researchers genetically blocked the enzyme, called HDAC2, they 'reawakened' some of the neurons and restored the animals' cognitive function. The results, published February 29, 2012, in the journal Nature, suggest that drugs that inhibit this particular enzyme would make good treatments for some of the most devastating effects of the incurable neurodegenerative disease.

BOSTON, MA—Very recently, researchers discovered an important population of immune cells called memory T cells living in parts of the body that are in contact with the environment (e.g., skin, lung, GI tract). How these "resident" memory T cells are generated was unknown, and their importance with regard to how our immune system remembers infection and how it prevents against re-infection is being studied intensively.

Experts say at least $20 million to $30 million in government research is needed over the next decade to adequately identify and address the possible ecological risks of synthetic biology, an emerging area of research focused on the design and construction of new biological parts and systems, or modification of existing ones, to create new applications in areas ranging from energy to chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

An international team, including a Cardiff University researcher, who previously found evidence of the Earth's earliest tree, has gone one step further.

The research team has now unearthed and investigated an entire fossil forest dating back 385 million years.

The Gilboa fossil forest, in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York, is generally referred to as 'the oldest fossil forest'. Yet by scientific standards it has remained mythical.

Monitoring the construction of wells, avoid over-exploiting cold groundwater close to hot groundwater, and controlling mineral water extraction. These are the recommendations from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and the University of Barcelona, after analysing the contamination of La Selva geothermal system, above all by arsenic pollution. In this region, which is known for its spa resorts and bottling plants, as well as in other Catalan coastal mountain ranges, uranium levels higher than what is recommended by the WHO have been detected.

A recent decline in ovenbirds (Seiurus aurocapilla), a ground-nesting migratory songbird, in forests in the northern Midwest United States is being linked by scientists to a seemingly unlikely culprit: earthworms.