Body

One of the first large-scale genomic studies conducted in a developing country has discovered genetic variants that elevate the risk for skin lesions in people chronically exposed to arsenic. Genetic changes found near the enzyme for metabolizing the chemical into a less toxic form can significantly increase an individual's risk for developing arsenic-related disease.

In recent years, a number of controversial claims have been made about the female mammal's egg supply – that it is renewed over her adult lifetime (as opposed to the conventional understanding that she is born with all of her eggs), and that the source of these eggs is stem cells that originate in the bone marrow. Now, Weizmann Institute scientists have disproved one of those claims and pointed in new directions toward resolving the other. Their findings, based on an original method for reconstructing lineage trees for cells, were published online today in PLoS Genetics.

Scientists have discovered a new target in their fight against the devastating global disease 'malaria' thanks to the discovery of a new protein involved in the parasite's life cycle.

The research has uncovered a vital player in the sexual phase of the malaria parasite's reproduction which could prove an effective target for new treatments to stop the disease in its tracks.

• Numerous mouse strains show great biological variation in features such as behavior, coat color and susceptibility to cancer and other diseases.
• This study examines one possible genetic cause for differential gene expression and biological variation.

A compound in citrus fruits may reduce your stroke risk, according to research reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

This prospective study is one of the first in which researchers examine how consuming flavonoid subclasses affects the risk of stroke. Flavonoids are a class of compounds present in fruits, vegetables, dark chocolate and red wine.

Preschools help children prepare for the rigors of grade school—especially children who come from a minority family, a poor family, or whose parents don't provide high-quality interactions. The results of a new study of over 1,000 identical and fraternal twins, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, confirm that preschool programs are a good idea.

You probably know your blood type: A, B, AB or O. You may even know if you're Rhesus positive or negative. But how about the Langereis blood type? Or the Junior blood type? Positive or negative? Most people have never even heard of these.

Yet this knowledge could be "a matter of life and death," says University of Vermont biologist Bryan Ballif.

Only 10 years ago, deciphering the genetic information from one individual in a matter of weeks to find a certain disease-causing genetic mutation would have been written off as science fiction.

It was the time of the Human Genome Project, and it had taken armies of sequencing robots working around the clock for almost a decade to unravel the complete sequence of the human genetic code – referred to as the genome – by churning out the DNA alphabet letter by letter.

LA JOLLA, Calif., February 23, 2012 – Researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham) and the Medical School of Hannover in Germany recently discovered how the botulinum neurotoxin, a potential bioterrorism agent, survives the hostile environment in the stomach on its journey through the human body. Their study, published February 24 in Science, reveals the first 3D structure of a neurotoxin together with its bodyguard, a protein made simultaneously in the same bacterium.

Plants often regarded as common weeds such as thistles, buttercups and clover could be critical in safe guarding fragile food webs on UK farms according to Researchers funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

The tiny, little-noticed jewel wasp may provide some answers as to how different species differ in size and shape. And that could lead to a better understanding of cell growth regulation, as well as the underlying causes of some diseases.

The debate about the potential severity of an outbreak of airborne H5N1 influenza in humans needs to move on from speculation and focus instead on how we can safely continue H5N1 research and share the results among researchers, according to a commentary to be published in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, on Friday, February 24.

The immune system protects from infections by detecting and eliminating invading pathogens. These two strategies form the basis of conventional clinical approaches in the fight against infectious diseases.

Birds in eastern North America are picking up the pace along their yearly migratory paths.

The reason, according to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers, is rising temperatures due to climate change.

San Diego, Calif. – How much calcium could a hibernating woodchuck's heart cells sequester, if a hibernating woodchuck's heart cells could sequester calcium? More than enough, it turns out, to protect the animals from cardiac arrhythmias – abnormal heart rhythms such as ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation that can lead to sudden cardiac death – according to a new study of the hibernating animals that may provide insight into arrhythmia therapies.