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A species of mosquito has been discovered breeding in the UK that has not been seen in the country since 1945. Populations of the mosquito, found across mainland Europe and known only by its Latin name Culex modestus, were recorded at a number of sites in the marshes of north Kent and south Essex in 2010 and 2011.

SANTA CRUZ, CA--Scientists have found that only about ten percent of the fall-run Chinook salmon spawning in California's Mokelumne River are naturally produced wild salmon. A massive influx of hatchery-raised fish that return to spawn in the wild is masking the fact that too few wild fish are returning to sustain a natural population in the river.

The egg sac silk of the cocoon stalk of the cave spider Meta menardi is the most stretchable egg sac silk yet tested, according to a study published Feb. 8 in the open access journal PLoS ONE.

Dogs are better than chimps at interpreting pointing gestures, according to a study published in the online journal PLoS ONE.

Ocean fish farming is a growing industry that may need increased monitoring and regulation, and Google Earth can be a powerful tool to that end, according to a study published in the Feb. 8 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE.

Scientists have found that only about ten percent of the fall-run Chinook salmon spawning in California's Mokelumne River are naturally produced wild salmon. A massive influx of hatchery-raised fish that return to spawn in the wild is masking the fact that too few wild fish are returning to sustain a natural population in the river.

Children of mothers screened and treated for reduced thyroid function during pregnancy show no signs of improved IQ compared to women who receive no treatment, new research has uncovered.

Scientists from Cardiff University's School of Medicine working with colleagues from The Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, and colleagues from Turin, Italy took blood samples from more than 20,000 women at about 13-weeks of pregnancy to test for thyroid function.

PITTSBURGH, Feb. 8 – The cost of medications through Medicare's subsidized prescription drug program varies from region to region across the United States largely due to the use of more expensive brand-name drugs and not because of the amount of drugs prescribed, according to a study led by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH). The authors said that more efficient prescribing practices could have saved the Medicare program and its beneficiaries $4.5 billion.

The Great Wall of China is not the only thing you can see from space. Fish farming cages are clearly visible through Google Earth's satellite images and University of British Columbia researchers have used them to estimate the amount of fish being cultivated in the Mediterranean.

The study, published today in the online journal PLoS ONE, is the first to estimate seafood production using satellite imagery.

The financial burden Americans face paying out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs has declined, although prescription costs remain a significant challenge for people with lower incomes and those with public insurance, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

Despite the improvement, more than 8 million nonelderly Americans lived in families with high drug-cost burden in 2008 and one in four devoted more than half of their total out-of-pocket medical spending to prescription drugs, according to findings published in the February edition of the journal Health Affairs.

Rules that allow some small employers to avoid regulation under the federal Affordable Care Act are unlikely to have a major impact on the future cost of health insurance unless those rules are relaxed to allow more businesses to opt out, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

Man may not live by bread alone, but cancer in animals appears less resilient, judging by a study that found chemotherapy drugs work better when combined with cycles of short, severe fasting.

Even fasting on its own effectively treated a majority of cancers tested in animals, including cancers from human cells.

The study in Science Translational Medicine, part of the Science family of journals, found that five out of eight cancer types in mice responded to fasting alone: Just as with chemotherapy, fasting slowed the growth and spread of tumors.

DNA sequences from tumor cells can be used to direct the immune system to attack cancer, according to scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The research, in mice, appears online Feb. 8 in Nature.

Scientists searching for the genomics version of the holy grail – more insight into predicting how an animal's genes affect physical or behavioral traits – now have a reference manual that should speed gene discoveries in everything from pest control to personalized medicine.

It's been more than 50 years since James Watson and Francis Crick showed that DNA is a double helix of two strands that complement each other. But how does a short piece of DNA find its match, out of the millions of 'letters' in even a small genome? New work by researchers at the University of California, Davis, handling and observing single molecules of DNA, shows how it's done. The results are published online Feb. 8 by the journal Nature.

Defects in DNA repair and copying are strongly linked to cancer, birth defects and other problems.