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MADISON, WI, November 16, 2009 -- A USDOE and USDA study concluded that 50 million U.S. acres of cropland, idle cropland, and cropland pasture could be converted from current uses to the production of perennial grasses, such as switchgrass, from which biomass could be harvested for use as a biofuel feedstock. Economically viable production of a perennial grass monoculture from which substantial quantities of biomass are removed annually is expected to require nitrogen fertilizer.

Tampa, Fla. (Nov. 23, 2009) – Two separate studies published in the current issue of Cell Transplantation (18:8), - now freely available on-line at http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/ct - have shown that transplanted human-derived umbilical cord blood (UCB) stem cells transplanted in an animal model had positive therapeutic effects on specific lung and heart disorders the animal models.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Major medical errors self-reported by American surgeons are strongly related to both burnout and depression. Those findings appear today in the online edition of Annals of Surgery. The Mayo Clinic-led study included collaborators from Johns Hopkins and the American College of Surgeons.

A novel approach to classify the gender of six-week-old turkey poults could save millions of male chicks from being killed shortly after birth, according to Dr. Gerald Steiner from the Dresden University of Technology in Germany and his team. Their use of infrared spectroscopy to determine the gender of young birds shows that it is a fast and accurate method with the potential to be used by the breeding industry to identify and select female eggs for breeding. The pilot study¹ has just been published online in Springer's journal Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry.

MAYWOOD, Il. -- A Loyola University Health System study has found that one out of five Type 2 diabetics is morbidly obese -- approximately 100 pounds or more overweight.

Researchers reported that 62.4 percent of U.S. adults with Type 2 diabetes are obese, and 20.7 percent are morbidly obese. Among African American adults with Type 2 diabetes, 1 in 3 is morbidly obese.

Since 1996, crop plants genetically modified to produce bacterial proteins that are toxic to certain insects, yet safe for people, have been planted on more than 200 million hectares worldwide. The popularity of these Bt crops, named after the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, comes from their ability to kill some major pests, allowing farmers to save money and lessen environmental impacts by reducing insecticide sprays.

A new species of chameleon has been discovered in Tanzania by a team of scientists.

Dr Andrew Marshall, from the Environment Department at the University of York, first spotted the animal while surveying monkeys in the Magombera Forest when he disturbed a twig snake eating one.

The specimen was collected, tested and compared to two others found by scientists in the same area and has now been named Kinyongia magomberae (the Magombera chameleon) in research published in the African Journal of Herpetology.

Amphibians like frogs and toads have existed for 360 million years and survived when the dinosaurs didn't, but a new aquatic fungus is threatening to make many of them extinct, according to an article in the November issue of Microbiology Today.

The fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), was found to be associated with waves of amphibian extinctions in Central America and north-eastern Australia in the 1990's. Bd infects over 350 amphibian species by penetrating their skin, but little else is known about where it came from and how it causes disease.

Not just birds, but also a few species of bats face a long journey every year. Researchers at Princeton University in the U.S. and at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell, Germany studied the migratory behaviour of the largest extant family of bats, the so-called "Vespertilionidae" with the help of mathematical models. They discovered that the migration over short as well as long distances of various kinds of bats evolved independently within the family (PLoS One, October 21st, 2009).

Carlos María Romeo Casabona is Director of the Interuniversity Professorship in Law and the Humane Genome at Deusto University and the University of the Basque Country. The Professorship is largely made up of jurists but also has other experts such as researchers in the fields of molecular biology, medicine and even specialists in ethics.

Animal studies suggest that adding flaxseed oil to the diet could reduce the risk of osteoporosis in post-menopausal women and women with diabetes, according to a report to be published in the International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition and Public Health.

Scientists have revealed how environmental irritants such as air pollution and cigarette smoke cause people to cough, in research published today in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. The authors of the study, from Imperial College London and the University of Hull, have identified the reaction inside the lungs that can trigger coughing when a person is exposed to particular irritants in the air. They suggest that their findings may ultimately lead to the development of new treatments for chronic coughing.

People who have kidney transplants need longer-term support than most friends, relatives or even healthcare professionals realise, according to a study of 160 patients published in the December issue of the UK-based Journal of Advanced Nursing.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – For the first time, scientists have demonstrated that stem cells found in amniotic fluid meet an important test of potential to become specialized cell types, which suggests they may be useful for treating a wider array of diseases and conditions than scientists originally thought.

A protein known to stimulate blood vessel growth has now been found to be responsible for the cell overgrowth in the development of polyps that characterize one of the most severe forms of sinusitis, a study by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests. The finding gives scientists a new target for developing novel therapies to treat this form of the disease, which typically resists all current treatments.