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New findings, published in PLOS Computational Biology, help demonstrate the evolutionary basis for allergy. Molecular similarities in food and environmental proteins that cause allergy (such as pollen), and multicellular parasites (such as parasitic worms), have been identified systematically for the first time.

A study led by Dr Nicholas Furnham (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine), supports the hypothesis that allergic reactions are a flawed antibody response towards harmless environmental allergens.

Rapid warming in the Gulf of Maine helps explain why New England's cod stocks are on the verge of collapse despite cuts to fishery activity, reports a new study. The results reveal how a warming climate complicates fisheries management. For centuries, Atlantic cod were pillars of New England's fisheries, carefully managed by programs designed to reduce harvesting levels in response to low stock biomass.

WASHINGTON (Oct. 29, 2015)--A team of researchers from the George Washington University (GW) and the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP) identified a new genus and species of small ape that existed before the evolutionary split of humans/great apes (hominids) and gibbons (the 'lesser apes' or hylobatids). Named Pliobates cataloniae, the new species has important implications for reconstructing the last common ancestor of the two groups (the living hominoids).

The findings were published Thursday in Science magazine.

Most of what we know about Mayan civilization relates to kings, queens and their elaborate temples. To understand what life was like for the 99 percent, one researcher turned to ancient animal bones stored at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Ashley Sharpe, a doctoral student at the museum on the UF campus, says the picture researchers have painted of the Maya people isn't broad enough.

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Every day, users are bombarded with animated ads across the Web, and companies fight to cut through the clutter. New research from the University at Buffalo School of Management has pinpointed one attribute online ads should have to influence consumers' perceptions of a new product--and their willingness to pay for it.

Consumers who see a Web ad in which the product changes direction while moving across the screen are more likely to perceive the product as innovative, according to forthcoming research in the Journal of Marketing.

A single variation in the gene for brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF) may influence obesity in children and adults, according to a new study funded by the National Institutes of Health. The study suggests that a less common version of the BDNF gene may predispose people to obesity by producing lower levels of BDNF protein, a regulator of appetite, in the brain.

PHILADELPHIA -- Regular physical activity could play a role in helping women at high-risk of breast cancer delay the need for drastic preventive measures such as prophylactic mastectomy, according to new research led by the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Results of the WISER Sister study help clarify the emerging connection between exercise and breast cancer risk.

Scientists at the University of Cambridge have identified a new property of essential proteins which, when it malfunctions, can cause the build up, or 'aggregation', of misshaped proteins and lead to serious diseases.

A common characteristic of neurodegenerative diseases - such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's disease - is the build-up of 'misfolded' proteins, which cause irreversible damage to the brain. For example, Alzheimer's disease sees the build-up of beta-amyloid 'plaques' and tau 'tangles'.

October 29, 2015 - After peaking in 2007, AIDS mortality in South Africa has decreased with the widespread introduction of effective antiretroviral therapy, according to updated estimates published in AIDS, official journal of the International AIDS Society. AIDS is published by Wolters Kluwer.

University of Toronto (U of T) researchers are proposing a new way of understanding Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), the devastating and incurable neurological disease. Their findings, published today in the journal Neuron, could be a major milestone on the path to a treatment for both ALS and dementia.

By delving into a previously overlooked corner of ALS research, Professor Peter St. George-Hyslop and his team discovered a new way in which the disease kills nerve cells.

Boulder, CO, USA - A nasty little 66-million-year-old family secret has been leaked by a recently unearthed tyrannosaur bone. The bone has peculiar teeth marks that strongly suggest it was gnawed by another tyrannosaur. The find could be some of the best evidence yet that tyrannosaurs were not shy about eating their own kind.

Despite the fact that the main function of water treatment plants is to clean the polluted waste water produced by human activity, "the effluent from them turns into a source of many pollutants in rivers", explained Ibon Aristi, researcher in the UPV/EHU's department of Plant Biology and Ecology. He has studied the impact of one of these effluents in the river Segre by observing the fluvial community, in other words, by analysing its response to the pollutants in the effluent.

Cell membranes are very elastic. They can become distorted when they are asked to do so, when the cell divides, or when a virus detaches itself from the cell. In both cases, the membrane is deformed by a protein complex called ESCRT-III. Up until now, we did not understand how this complex works. Swiss and French researchers say that this protein complex forms a molecular spring at the surface of the cell, and operates like a watch spring. This article was published in Cell.

PHILADELPHIA--(Oct. 29, 2015)--The gene SPOP is mutated in up to 15 percent of all cases of prostate cancer, making it one of the most mutated genes in the disease. However, when the gene is functioning properly, it acts as a tumor suppressor. Despite what's known about SPOP, scientists have not been able to determine exactly how the gene is able to halt the progression of disease.

(PHILADELPHIA) - Almost all infections make us sick by getting past our first line of defense - the sticky mucous surfaces that line our mouths, our eyes, our lungs and our guts. Once through, it's up to the immune cells that reside in our bodies to fight the disease. Now researchers have found that one virus activates the immune system to continually feed sentinel cells into the mucous membranes where they could offer better and more immediate protection at the front lines, preventing disease before it occurs.