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ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A new class of drugs reduced the risk of patients contracting a serious and often deadly side effect of lifesaving bone marrow transplant treatments, according to a study from researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

In the arms race between bacteria and modern medicine, bacteria have gained an edge. In recent decades, bacterial resistance to antibiotics has developed faster than the production of new antibiotics, making bacterial infections increasingly difficult to treat. Scientists worry that a particularly virulent and deadly "superbug" could one day join the ranks of existing untreatable bacteria, causing a public health catastrophe comparable with the Black Death.

ANN ARBOR—Mixing energy drinks with alcohol is riskier than just drinking alcohol alone, according to a new study that examines the impact of a growing trend among young adults.

Published in the current issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, the study was conducted by Megan Patrick of the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research and Jennifer Maggs of Penn State University.

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — With global production of plastic exceeding 280 metric tons every year, a fair amount of the stuff is bound to make its way to the natural environment. However, until now researchers haven't known whether ingested plastic transfers chemical additives or pollutants to wildlife. A new study conducted by UC Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) shows that toxic concentrations of pollutants and additives enter the tissue of animals that have eaten microplastic. The findings are published today in Current Biology.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A researcher at the Cardiovascular Institute (CVI) at Rhode Island, The Miriam and Newport hospitals has found a link to human heart failure that if blocked, may reduce the risk of sudden cardiac death. The paper, written by Samuel C. Dudley, M.D., Ph.D., chief of cardiology at the CVI, is published in the journal Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology.

HOUSTON – (Dec. 2, 2013) – Think you don't recycle enough? You're not alone. However, people's ability to overcome self-doubt plays a critical role in how successfully they act in support of environmental issues, according to a new study co-authored by management and organizational behavior scholars from Rice University, the University of Michigan and the University of Toronto.

Richard Martel and his research team at the Department of Chemistry of the Université de Montréal have discovered a method to improve detection of the infinitely small. Their discovery is presented in the November 24 online edition of the journal Nature Photonics.

"Raman scattering provides information on the ways molecules vibrate, which is equivalent to taking their fingerprint. It's a bit like a bar code," said the internationally renowned professor. "Raman signals are specific for each molecule and thus useful in identifying these molecules."

New research into cheetah cub survival has refuted the theory that lions are a cub's main predator and that big cats cannot coexist in conservation areas. The study, published in the Journal of Zoology, found that cubs in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park were seven times more likely to survive then on the Serengeti Plains and that lions were not found to be the cubs' main predatory threat.

New research from the University of South Carolina's Arnold School of Public Health shows that mothers in the U.S. are far less physically active than they were in previous decades and now spend more time engaged in sedentary activities like watching television than in cooking, cleaning and exercising combined.

Given the essential role that daily physical activity plays in the health and wellbeing of mothers and their children, this research provides important insights into the nation's pervasive health problems such as childhood obesity and diabetes.

"To our knowledge, the only other example of a specialized sound-producing organ in mammals that is independent of the larynx are the phonic lips that toothed whales use to generate echolocation clicks," Charlton says.

The combination of morphological, video, and acoustic data in the new study represents the first evidence in a terrestrial mammal of an organ other than the larynx that is dedicated to sound production. Charlton says that he and his colleagues will now look more closely at other mammals to find out whether this vocal adaptation is truly unique to koalas.

Tiny bits of plastic trash could spell big trouble for marine life, starting with the worms, say a team of researchers from Plymouth University and the University of Exeter who report their evidence in a pair of studies in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on December 2. Those marine worms play a key ecological role as an important source of food for other animals.

Many cancers have adapted to cope with high levels of immune system-produced free radicals, also referred to as reactive oxygen species, by overproducing antioxidant proteins. One of these proteins, superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1), is overproduced in lung adenocarcinomas and has been implicated as a target for chemotherapy.

RNA molecules, used by cells to make proteins, are generally thought to be "silent" when stowed in cytoplasmic granules. But a protein mutated in some ALS patients forms granules that permit translation of stored RNAs, according to a study in The Journal of Cell Biology. The finding identifies a new mechanism that could contribute to the pathology of the disease.

First Nations adults with diabetes have more than double the risk of end-stage kidney disease compared with non–First Nations adults, found a new study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

Diabetes and high blood pressure are common causes of kidney disease, which can result in end-stage renal disease after years of slow decline in kidney function.

Researchers have identified a protein that causes loss of function in immune cells combatting HIV. The scientists report in a paper appearing online Dec. 2 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation that the protein, Sprouty-2, is a promising target for future HIV drug development, since disabling it could help restore the cells' ability to combat the virus that causes AIDS.