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FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Feb. 1, 2012 — The U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) today published a precedent-setting policy statement warning about the "unusually high magnitude" risk from unrestricted publication of avian flu research.

The NSABB is chaired by Dr. Paul Keim, Director of the Pathogen Genomics Division of the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), and a Regents Professor of Biology at Northern Arizona University, and Director of NAU's Center for Microbial Genetics and Genomics.

A relatively fast, easy and inexpensive technique for inducing nanorods - rod-shaped semiconductor nanocrystals - to self-assemble into one-, two- and even three-dimensional macroscopic structures has been developed by a team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). This technique should enable more effective use of nanorods in solar cells, magnetic storage devices and sensors. It should also help boost the electrical and mechanical properties of nanorod-polymer composites.

Using some of the most powerful nuclear magnetic resonance equipment available, researchers at the University of California, Davis, are making discoveries about the shape and structure of biological molecules -- potentially leading to new ways to treat or prevent diseases such as breast cancer and Alzheimer's disease.

The findings appear in the latest issues of the journals Nature and Journal of Biological Chemistry

While researchers have long known of the incredible strength of spider silk, the robust nature of the tiny filaments cannot alone explain how webs survive multiple tears and winds that exceed hurricane strength.

Now, a study that combines experimental observations of spider webs with complex computer simulations has shown that web durability depends not only on silk strength, but on how the overall web design compensates for damage and the response of individual strands to continuously varying stresses.

Sugar should be controlled like alcohol and tobacco to protect public health, according to a team of UCSF researchers, who maintain in a new report that sugar is fueling a global obesity pandemic, contributing to 35 million deaths annually worldwide from non-communicable diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Non-communicable diseases now pose a greater health burden worldwide than infectious diseases, according to the United Nations. In the United States, 75 percent of health care dollars are spent treating these diseases and their associated disabilities.

As sophisticated as the human eye is, it does not compare to what the latest scientific achievement has to offer in enhancing what can be visually perceived.

Funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), the development of a new circular polarization filter by a collaborative team of scientists at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM) and ITN Energy Systems has the potential to aid in early cancer detection, enhance vision through dust and clouds and to even improve a moviegoer's 3D experience.

While genetically modified plants have already been introduced into the wild on a large scale in some parts of the world, the release of genetically modified animals is still at a relatively early stage. A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön, Germany has now published a study examining the free release of genetically modified insects in Malaysia, USA, and Cayman Islands.

NEW YORK -- Despite advances in the diagnosis and treatment of unruptured brain aneurysms, outcomes have remained stagnant over the last 10 years. This can be explained by the dramatic proliferation of minimally invasive endoscopic coiling procedures at lower-volume community hospitals, where outcomes are inferior.

These findings are reported in a study by neurologists, neurosurgeons and neuro-anesthesiologists at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center and published in the journal Stroke.

New Rochelle, NY -- The value of routine body mass index (BMI) screening in schools has been a topic of ongoing controversy. An expert Roundtable Discussion in the current issue of Childhood Obesity, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., debates the pros and cons of routine BMI screening in the school setting, discusses the most recent data, and explores when and for what purpose BMI screening results should be shared with parents and the potential benefits. The Roundtable is available online.

Spotted salamanders exposed to contaminated roadside ponds are adapting to their toxic environments, according to a Yale paper in Scientific Reports. This study provides the first documented evidence that a vertebrate has adapted to the negative effects of roads apparently by evolving rapidly.

Involuntary childlessness owing to reduced fertility is a concern for many men. However, these men do have one advantage – they run a significantly lower risk of suffering from prostate cancer. Researchers are interested in whether this phenomenon could be used in the fight against cancer.

There is a clear link between male subfertility and a lower risk of prostate cancer. According to a new thesis from Lund University in Sweden, involuntarily childless men have around a 50 per cent lower risk of suffering from prostate cancer than men who have fathered at least one child.

The first study to check the effects of eating potatoes on blood pressure in humans has concluded that two small helpings of purple potatoes (Purple Majesty) a day decreases blood pressure by about 4 percent without causing weight gain. In a report in the ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, the researchers say that decrease, although seemingly small, is sufficient to potentially reduce the risk of several forms of heart disease.

Baltimore, MD -- A new comparison of the procedures to help prevent strokes by removing or relieving blockages in the arteries of the neck concludes they are equally effective at halting repeat blockage. Two years after treatment with either surgery or a minimally invasive treatment using wire coils called stents, the re-blockage rate remained the same, approximately six percent. Results of the analysis were detailed in a presentation at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference today in New Orleans.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Hepatitis C, an infectious disease that can cause inflammation and organ failure, has different effects on different people. But no one is sure why some people are very susceptible to the infection, while others are resistant.

Among corporations involved in the 2006 stock-option backdating scandal, those implicated earlier were more likely to dismiss their top executives than those that surfaced later on, according to new research from Rice University and the University of California at Irvine.

The study, "Executive Turnover in the Stock-Option Backdating Wave: The Impact of Social Context," will be published in an upcoming edition of the Strategic Management Journal.