Body

"Well, I suppose I'd better start finding names for things…" was the first thing said by the ill-fated sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus Linnaeus, 1758) in Douglas Adam's Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Such is the richness of life that, unlike that whale, mankind is still naming things. Without commonly accepted names there would be no way to communicate research about life and it is the profession of taxonomists to put names on organisms and describe the different forms of life on Earth.

Scientists have for the first time provided proof of principle for a drug-based treatment of acute pancreatitis – a disease which is often alcohol-related and for which currently there is no treatment.

Each year around 20,000 people in the UK are admitted to hospital with acute pancreatitis. One in five of these cases are severe, resulting in around 1000 deaths annually.

The largest study of its kind has shown the most effective test for the diagnosis of Clostridium difficile (C-Diff), a bacterial infection which causes 15,000-20,000 deaths a year in hospitals in the United States.

C-Diff affects the digestive system, and is most common in hospital patients treated with antibiotics for other infections.

Only a fraction of the biodiversity on the planet is known to scientists and exploration of new places and habitats continue to yield exciting discoveries and new species to describe by taxonomists. This task is becoming increasingly urgent as a function of the continuous overexploitation of natural resources and destruction of habitats. In fact, it has recently been estimated that it takes on average 21 years from the discovery of a species in nature to its formal scientific description.

This news release is available in German.

Helicobacter pylori is a bacterium that establishes a life-long stomach infection in humans, which in some cases can lead to duodenal ulcers or stomach cancer. New research, presented at this week's Society for General Microbiology Autumn Conference, gives us a clearer understanding of how these bacteria can manipulate the human immune system to survive in the mucosal lining of the stomach.

A common belief is that our modern, stimulation-filled environment encourages individualistic behavior (or anti-social behavior, depending on one's point of view), while simpler surroundings give rise to a more developed community life. New research at the Weizmann Institute shows that this assumption – at least for mice – is based in reality: Mice that have been raised in a stimulus-rich environment have less complexity in their social interactions than those growing up in more Spartan conditions.

A postdoctoral fellow from Wits University has discovered the oldest known land-living animal from Gondwana in a remote part of the Eastern Cape. Dr Robert Gess, from the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Wits, discovered the 350 million year old fossilised scorpion from rocks of the Devonian Witteberg Group near Grahamstown. This unique specimen, which is a new species, has been called Gondwanascorpio emzantsiensis.

His discovery has been published in the peer reviewed journal African Invertebrate on Wednesday, 28 August 2013.

Researchers from The University of Manchester and Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust have identified proteins in the blood that could be used to predict whether a woman in her first pregnancy is at increased risk of developing pre-eclampsia.

Pre-eclampsia is a complication of pregnancy where the mother develops high blood pressure and protein is present in the urine. In some cases, this can develop into a serious condition for both mother and baby and the only cure is delivery of the baby, often prematurely.

Scientists have found another chink in bacteria's armour, mapping for the first time the structure of a protein that plays an important role helping infection gain a foothold in the body.

Published today in Nature a group of international scientists from Monash University, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Georgia Institutes of Technology and the Diamond Light Source have determined the structure, in two species of bacteria, of an essential membrane protein called BamA.

Lead author Dr Louise Keogh from the School of Population and Global Health at the University of Melbourne said "This case presents evidence that life-insurance companies have made incorrect risk-assessment judgments based on genetic information."

"In addition, we have previously found that the fear of such discrimination can act as a deterrent to genetic testing."

Published in the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) today, the authors are calling on a more collaborative approach between industry, government and researchers to address these issues.

A Swedish archaeological expedition from the University of Gothenburg has excavated a previously unknown part of the Bronze Age city Hala Sultan Tekke (around 1600-1100 BC). The finds include a facility for extraction of copper and production of bronze objects, evidence of production of luxurious textiles, as well as ceramics and other objects imported from all over the Mediterranean but also from central Europe.

A long-term study of children with a complex heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) found that the risk of death or need for immediate listing for heart transplantation was greatest for those who developed this disease as infants with congestive heart failure and for children who also had selective inborn errors of metabolism, a group of rare genetic disorders in which one or more of the body's key metabolic processes are disrupted.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands – Tuesday 3 September 2013: Being underweight increases the death risk of women with coronary artery disease (CAD) by 2-fold, according to research presented at the ESC Congress today by Dr Aziza Azimi from Denmark. The study suggests that underweight women with CAD should gain weight to reduce their risk of death.

Among patients with prehypertension and coronary artery disease, use of the renin (an enzyme secreted by the kidneys) inhibitor aliskiren, compared with placebo, did not result in improvement or slowing in the progression of coronary atherosclerosis, according to a study published by JAMA. The study is being released early online to coincide with its presentation at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2013.