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New Haven, Conn. — Throughout the animal kingdom brilliant colors or elaborate behavioral displays serve as "advertisements" for attracting mates. But, what do the ads promise, and is there truth in advertising? Researchers at Yale theorize that when males must provide care for the survival of their offspring, the males' signals will consistently be honest — and they may devote more of their energy to caring for their offspring than to being attractive.

BOSTON (June 18, 2009) - Omega-3 fatty acids found in fatty fish such as tuna and salmon may protect against progression of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), but the benefits appear to depend on the stage of disease and whether certain supplements are taken, report researchers at the Laboratory for Nutrition and Vision Research (LNVR), Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) at Tufts University.

The resistance pattern for antibiotics in gulls is the same as in humans, and a new study by Uppsala University researchers shows that nearly half of Mediterranean gulls in southern France have some form of resistance to antibiotics. The study is being published today in the journal PLoS One.

PITTSBURGH—New evidence underscores the theory of human origin that suggests humans most likely share a common ancestor with orangutans, according to research from the University of Pittsburgh and the Buffalo Museum of Science. Reporting in the June 18 edition of the Journal of Biogeography, the researchers reject as "problematic" the popular suggestion, based on DNA analysis, that humans are most closely related to chimpanzees, which they maintain is not supported by fossil evidence.

Human tissues normally discarded after surgical procedures could be a rich additional source of adult stem cells for regenerative medicine. New research from BioMed Central's open access Journal of Translational Medicine shows for the first time that human fallopian tubes are abundant in mesenchymal stem cells which have the potential of becoming a variety of cell types.

A radically different approach to choosing the best treatment options for early breast cancer has been proposed by an international panel of experts in a report from the 11th St Gallen conference.

The report is published online in the cancer journal, Annals of Oncology [1] today (Thursday 18 June), and represents the consensus on early breast cancer treatment that emerged from the conference of more than 4,800 participants from 101 countries, which took place in March 2009.

Washington, DC – June 12, 2009 – In public comments given today before the Secretary of Health and Human Services Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health and Society (SACGHS), the Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) addressed three areas: Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER), evidence for coverage of genetic and genomic tests, and gene patents.

AMP first summarized the organization's recent extensive comment letter to the Federal Coordinating Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research:

Researchers have identified a new candidate tumor suppressor gene in colorectal cancer and examined its use as a potential biomarker in stool samples, according to a new study published online June 17 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

In the study, Manon van Engeland, Ph.D., of the Department of Pathology at Maastricht University Medical Center in the Netherlands, and colleagues examined N-Myc downstream-regulated gene 4 (NDRG4) as a novel tumor suppressor and biomarker.

Banning or restricting the use of certain types of fishing gear could help the world's coral reefs and their fish populations survive the onslaughts of climate change according to a study by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and other groups.

The international team of scientists has proposed that bans on fishing gear - like spear guns, fish traps, and beach seine nets – could aid in the recovery of reefs and fish populations hard hit by coral bleaching events.

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — A protein called neuroligin that is implicated in some forms of autism is critical to the construction of a working synapse, locking neurons together like "molecular Velcro," a study lead by a team of UC Davis researchers has found.

Published online in the June issue of the journal Neural Development, the study is accompanied by groundbreaking images that are the first to show two neurons coming together using neuroligin to construct a new synapse.

Waltham, Mass.—Health and religion have always been intertwined, most obviously through prayer on behalf of the sick. Does intercessory prayer for sick people actually help heal them? For thousands of years some people have believed so. But new Brandeis University research in the Journal of Religion this month shows that over the last four decades, medical studies of intercessory prayer—the prayer of strangers at a distance—actually say more about the scientists conducting the studies than about the power of prayer to heal.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Same-sex behavior is a nearly universal phenomenon in the animal kingdom, common across species, from worms to frogs to birds, concludes a new review of existing research.

Two new studies from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia advance the search for genetic events that result in neuroblastoma, a puzzling, often-deadly type of childhood cancer.

Originating in the peripheral nervous system, neuroblastoma is the most common solid cancer of early childhood and causes 15 percent of all childhood cancer deaths.

PITTSBURGH, June 17 – An enzyme known to play a key role in the development of emphysema serves as the first line of defense against bacterial infection of the lung, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. They also found that the antimicrobial activity comes from a small portion of the enzyme that is structurally and sequentially unique in nature.

Bacteria can anticipate a future event and prepare for it, according to new research at the Weizmann Institute of Science. In a paper that appeared today in Nature, Prof. Yitzhak Pilpel, doctoral student Amir Mitchell and research associate Dr. Orna Dahan of the Institute's Molecular Genetics Department, together with Prof. Martin Kupiec and Gal Romano of Tel Aviv University, examined microorganisms living in environments that change in predictable ways.