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Sauropods, the largest land animals in Earth's history, are still mightily puzzling the scientists. These plant-eating dinosaurs with their long necks and small heads could reach a height of 10 meters or more and dominated all other land vertebrates in terms of size. They could weigh up to 80 tons, more than any other known land vertebrate. One question that has been intensely debated is how these giants of the animal kingdom regulated their own body temperature. Dr.

A world of cloak-and-dagger pharmaceuticals has come a step closer with the development of stealth compounds programmed to spring into action when they receive the signal.

Researchers at the University of Nottingham's School of Pharmacy have designed and tested large molecular complexes that will reveal their true identity only when they've reached their intended target, like disguised saboteurs working deep behind enemy lines.

Ryan Zurakowski, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Delaware, is co-author of a paper appearing in Nature Medicine on Jan. 12 highlighting the role of T-cells in HIV.

The paper, titled "HIV-1 Persistence in CD4+ T-Cells with Stem Cell-Like Properties," provides evidence that a particular T-cell type may help researchers better understand why HIV can persist despite treatment.

SYDNEY: Marine ecologists in Sydney have successfully restored a once thriving seaweed species, which vanished along a stretch of the city's coastline during the 1970s and 80s during high levels of sewage outfalls.

A team of researchers from UNSW, the Sydney Institute of Marine Science and the NSW Department of Primary Industries has transplanted fertile specimens of the missing crayweed (Phyllospora comosa) onto two barren reef sites where it once grew abundantly.

Contrary to common belief, mitochondrial genes seem to matter for how well individuals survive and reproduce. These new results are reported by researchers at Uppsala University, Sweden, who studied the genes of a common beetle species.

To determine whether rats would behave similarly toward strangers, the researchers worked with two rat strains, one albino and the other with a black-hooded fur pattern. Free rats, which were always albino, were first tested with trapped albino strangers they had never previously interacted with, even by smell. They encountered a different stranger every day, once per day, for 12 days. Free rats quickly became consistent openers for these albino strangers.

Two small RNAs (sRNAs) working in concert enable the deadly enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) 0157:H7 to attach to and initiate infection in epithelial cells that line the digestive tract, according to a study published in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

January 14, 2014 - (BRONX, NY) - The first study of hepatitis C infection among different Hispanic groups in the U.S. has found that infection with the virus varies widely, with Puerto Rican Hispanics much more likely than other groups to be infected. The study, led by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, highlights which Hispanic populations would benefit most from increased hepatitis C testing and treatment.

Most students in elementary, middle and high schools are exposed to food commercialism (including exclusive beverage contracts and the associated incentives, profits and advertising) at school, although there has been a decrease in beverage vending, according to a study by Yvonne Terry-McElrath, M.S.A., of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and colleagues.

Schools are desirable marketing areas for food and beverage companies, although many of the products marketed to students are nutritionally poor, according to the study background.

Giving an infant a probiotic during the first three months of life appears to reduce the onset of gastrointestinal disorders and result in lower associated costs, according to a study by Flavia Indrio, M.D., of the Aldo Moro University of Bari, Italy, and colleagues.

While the ability of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) to become any type of mature cell, from neuron to heart to skin and bone, is indisputably crucial to human development, no less important is the mechanism needed to maintain hESCs in their pluripotent state until such change is required.

In a paper published in this week's Online Early Edition of PNAS, researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine identify a key gene receptor and signaling pathway essential to doing just that – maintaining hESCs in an undifferentiated state.

LOS ANGELES - For the first time, scientists and engineers have identified a critical cancer-causing component in the virus that causes Kaposi's sarcoma, the most common cancer among HIV-infected people. The discovery lays the foundation for developing drugs that prevent Kaposi's sarcoma and other related cancers.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke scientists have taken aim at what may be an Achilles' heel of the HIV virus.

Combining expertise in biochemistry, immunology and advanced computation, researchers at Duke University have determined the structure of a key part of the HIV envelope protein, the gp41 membrane proximal external region (MPER), which previously eluded detailed structural description.

(Chicago – Jan. 13, 2014) -- New research shows that humans and other primates burn 50% fewer calories each day than other mammals. The study, published January 13 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that these remarkably slow metabolisms explain why humans and other primates grow up so slowly and live such long lives. The study also reports that primates in zoos expend as much energy as those in the wild, suggesting that physical activity may have less of an impact on daily energy expenditure than is often thought.

The discovery of well-preserved pelves and a partial pelvic fin from Tiktaalik roseae, a 375 million-year-old transitional species between fish and the first legged animals, reveals that the evolution of hind legs actually began as enhanced hind fins.

This challenges existing theory that large, mobile hind appendages were developed only after vertebrates transitioned to land. The fossils are described by scientists in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, online on Jan. 13.