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SAN FRANCISCO -- A year-long experiment on tiny ocean organisms called coccolithophores suggests that the single-celled algae may still be able to grow their calcified shells even as oceans grow warmer and more acidic in Earth's near future.

The study stands in contrast to earlier studies suggesting that coccolithophores would fail to build strong shells in acidic waters. The world's oceans are expected to become more acidic as human activities pump increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the Earth's atmosphere.

Of the over 1,900 errors already reported in the gene responsible for cystic fibrosis (CF), it is unclear how many of them actually contribute to the inherited disease. Now a team of researchers reports significant headway in figuring out which mutations are benign and which are deleterious. In so doing, they have increased the number of known CF-causing mutations from 22 to 127, accounting for 95 percent of the variations found in patients with CF.

Leicester geneticists have discovered a potential defence against Huntington's disease – a fatal neurodegenerative disorder which currently has no cure.

The team of University of Leicester researchers identified that glutathione peroxidase activity – a key antioxidant in cells – protects against symptoms of the disease in model organisms.

They hope that the enzyme activity – whose protective ability was initially observed in model organisms such as yeast - can be further developed and eventually used to treat people with the genetically-inherited disease.

(TORONTO, Canada – Aug. 25, 2013) – Stem cell scientists at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre have discovered the gene GATA3 has a role in how blood stem cells renew themselves, a finding that advances the quest to expand these cells in the lab for clinical use in bone marrow transplantation, a procedure that saves thousands of lives every year.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – A new genome-wide association study (GWAS) estimates the number of different places in the human genome that are involved in schizophrenia.

In particular, the study identifies 22 locations, including 13 that are newly discovered, that are believed to play a role in causing schizophrenia.

Concealed within the vastness of the human genome, (comprised of some 3 billion base pairs), mutations are commonplace. While the majority of these appear to have neutral effect on human health, many others are associated with diseases and disease susceptibility.

In a world first, new Australian medical research has given pregnant women with epilepsy new hope of reducing their chance of having a baby with physical birth defects.

According to research published in the September 2013 issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, epilepsy experts at The Royal Melbourne Hospital have discovered a link between high doses of common epilepsy drug valproate and the increased risk of having a baby with spina bifida or hypospadias.

Researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), led by Dr. Lee Bulla, have demonstrated for the first time the selective cytotoxicity of Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. israelensis Cry4B toxin is mediated by BT-R3. The Cry toxins produced by Bacillus thuringiensis exert their insecticidal activity by binding with high-affinity to their cognate cadherin receptors located on the surface of epithelial cells that line the midgut of susceptible insects.

MADISON — In an era of widespread genetic sequencing, the ability to edit and alter an organism's DNA is a powerful way to explore the information within and how it guides biological function.

A paper from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the August issue of the journal GENETICS takes genome editing to a new level in fruit flies, demonstrating a remarkable level of fine control and, importantly, the transmission of those engineered genetic changes across generations.

BOSTON –– A new study has revealed marked differences in the genomic terrain of the two most common types of cervical cancer, suggesting that patients might benefit from therapies geared to each type's molecular idiosyncrasies.

Philadelphia, Pa. (August 22, 2013) – A statistical model accounting for dozens of different genes in combination—and the interactions between them—is an important step forward in understanding the genetic factors affecting the risk of Crohn's disease (CD), reports a study in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, official journal of the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America (CCFA).

African mountain bamboos are something of a mystery, as nearly all bamboos are found in Asia or South America. Hidden away up mountains in the tropics where they provide food for gorillas, just as China's bamboos provide food for the Giant Panda, there are apparently only 2 species, and they had not been examined in very great detail, except by the gorillas, Fig. 1.

New Orleans, LA – Mei-Chin Hsieh, MSPH, CTR, of LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Public Health's Louisiana Tumor Registry, is the lead author of a study that reports racial and ethnic differences in the incidence of soft tissue sarcomas in adolescents and young adults.

HONOLULU, HI – University of Hawaii Cancer Center Researcher Song-Yi Park, PhD, along with her colleagues, recently discovered that a greater consumption of fruits and vegetables may lower the risk of invasive bladder cancer in women.

In a pioneer study published in the latest issue of the scientific journal Nature Communications*, a research team at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC; Portugal), led by Miguel Godinho Ferreira in collaboration with Isabel Gordo, show for the first time that chromosomes rearrangements (such as inversions or translocations) can provide advantages to the cells that harbor them depending on the environment they are exposed.