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This year's unusually long and rocky flu season would be nothing compared to the pandemic that could occur if bird flu became highly contagious among humans, which is why UCLA researchers and their colleagues are creating new ways to predict where an outbreak could emerge.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- A University of Florida researcher has described a new genus and species of extinct saber-toothed cat from Polk County, Fla., based on additional fossil acquisitions of the animal over the last 25 years.

Francisella tularensis, the cause of tularemia and one of the deadliest respiratory pathogens in existence, is considered a potential biological weapon because it is readily aerosolized and exhibits a high degree of infectivity and lethality in humans.

While a live attenuated vaccine strain has been developed, it remains unlicensed because scientists have been unable to understand the basis for its attenuated virulence.

URBANA – College-age kids who don't consume at least three servings of dairy daily are three times more likely to develop metabolic syndrome than those who do, said a new University of Illinois study.

"And only one in four young persons in the study was getting the recommended amount of dairy," said Margarita Teran-Garcia, a U of I professor of food science and human nutrition.

That alarming finding means that three-fourths of the 18- to 25-year-old college applicants surveyed are at risk for metabolic syndrome, the researcher said.

DURHAM, NC – A potentially lethal fungal infection appears to gain virulence by being able to anticipate and disarm a hostile immune attack in the lungs, according to findings by researchers at Duke Medicine.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Collaborators from Mayo-Illinois Alliance for Technology Based Healthcare have developed a new, single molecule test for detecting methylated DNA. Methylation -- the addition of a methyl group of molecules to a DNA strand -- is one of the ways gene expression is regulated. The findings appear in the current issue of Scientific Reports (Nature Publishing Group).

Rice University researchers have found a way to divide and modify enzymes to create what amounts to a genetic logic gate.

Biochemist Matthew Bennett and graduate student David Shis created a library of AND gates by mutating a protein from a bacterial virus. The well-understood protein known as T7 RNA polymerase (RNAP) is a strong driver of transcription in cells.

Biologists since Aristotle have puzzled over the reasons for mass strandings of whales and dolphins, in which groups of up to several hundred individuals drive themselves up onto a beach, apparently intentionally. Recent genetic research has shed some light on whether family relationships play a role in these enigmatic and often fatal beachings of otherwise healthy whales.

NEWPORT, Ore. – Pilot whales that have died in mass strandings in New Zealand and Australia included many unrelated individuals at each event, a new study concludes, challenging a popular assumption that whales follow each other onto the beach and to almost certain death because of familial ties.

Using genetic samples from individuals in large strandings, scientists have determined that both related and unrelated individuals were scattered along the beaches – and that the bodies of mothers and young calves were often separated by large distances.

PHILADELPHIA - Brown fat is a hot topic, pardon the pun. Brown fats cells, as opposed to white fat cells, make heat for the body, and are thought to have evolved to help mammals cope with the cold. But, their role in generating warmth might also be applied to coping with obesity and diabetes.

New research, published in Neuron, gives insight into how single mutations in the VCP gene cause a range of neurological conditions including a form of dementia called Inclusion Body Myopathy, Paget's Disease of the Bone and Frontotemporal Dementia (IBMPFD), and the motor neuron disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

Single mutations in one gene rarely cause such different diseases. This study shows that these mutations disrupt energy production in cells shedding new light on the role of VCP in these multiple disorders.

Sexting: Involves sending sexually explicit messages and/or photographs, primarily between mobile phones using the SMS system was first reported in 2005. It is an obvious portmanteau of "sex" and "texting"; the word was added to the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary in August 2012. 4% of mobile phone-owning teens claim to have sent sexually suggestive, nude or nearly nude images or videos of themselves to someone else via a mobile device while 15% claim to have received such material from someone they know.

New Rochelle, NY, March 14, 2013—Severe chronic pain associated with conditions such as bladder pain syndrome/interstitial cystitis often require the use of opioid medication, with the risk of dependency and serious adverse reactions. An alternative treatment strategy increases the levels of a naturally occurring painkiller in and around the nerves that deliver pain signals to the bladder. This new therapeutic approach is described in an article in Human Gene Therapy, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

Completion rates for the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine series across both genders continue to remain alarmingly low nearly seven years after its introduction, suggesting that better patient education and increased public vaccine financing programs are needed, according to new research from the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB).

The researchers report "startling" trends in a series of three separate studies published in Cancer, Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics and Vaccine.

How much of the United States' newfound bounty of natural gas should stay at home, keeping prices low for domestic customers? How much should be earmarked for export in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG), at the risk of making natural gas pricier? Those questions are the topic of the cover story in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.