Bacterial flora inhabiting the human gut have become one of the hottest topics in biological research. Implicated in a range of important activities including digestion, fine-tuning body weight, regulating immune response, and producing neurotransmitters affect that brain and behavior, these tiny workers form diverse communities. Hundreds of species inhabit the gut, and although most are beneficial, some can be very dangerous. In new research appearing in the journal PLOS ONE, a team led by Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown, a researcher at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute, ...

The number of people killed by mental health patients has fallen to its lowest level in a decade -- figures released today show. Experts suggest the fall in homicide reflects safer patient care and point to the possible effect of better treatment of drug and alcohol problems as well as new legal powers in the community. But suicides among mental health patients increased with the current economic difficulties a likely factor. The findings, reported in the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness (NCI) produced by The ...

The idea of fighting infections and even cancers by inducing protective immune responses may now be a step closer to clinical practice. Researchers have removed a major obstacle to widespread use of so-called adoptive transfer therapy, in which a patient receives "killer" immune cells targeting a disease agent. Existing technologies can easily provide T cells that will recognize a specific antigen, but it has been challenging to identify individual cells most likely to succeed in fighting the disease – until now. Scientists at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) ...

An international research team has used a novel approach to identify genetic factors that appear to influence susceptibility to cholera. The findings by investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), the Broad Institute and the International Center for Diarrhœal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) indicate the importance of pathways involved in regulating water loss in intestinal cells and of the innate immune system in the body's response to the bacteria that causes cholera, which affects from 3 to 5 million people each year and causes more than 100,000 deaths. ...

Despite decades of research on the bacterium that causes tuberculosis (TB), scientists have not had a comprehensive understanding of how the bacterium is wired to adapt to changing conditions in the host. Now, researchers at Stanford University, Seattle BioMed, Boston University and the Broad Institute, Max Planck Institute of Biology in Berlin, Germany, Caprion Proteomics Inc. in Montreal, Canada, Brigham and Woman's Hospital (Harvard University), and Colorado State University have taken the first steps toward a complete representation of the regulatory network for Mycobacterium ...

A new study has cast doubt on the claim that crabs may have disappeared from Antarctica only to return due to warming seas. The theory surfaced two years ago following the discovery of a major colony of King crabs (Lithodidae) in the Palmer Deep, a basin in the continental shelf off the Antarctic Peninsula. It was thought the species may have left the continent between 40 and 15 million years ago and was returning as seawater temperatures rose. Fears were expressed that its reintroduction would decimate other fauna in the region. But an extensive study of all known ...

A species of Indonesian parrot can solve complex mechanical problems that involve undoing a series of locks one after another, revealing new depths to physical intelligence in birds. A team of scientists from Oxford University, the University of Vienna, and the Max Planck Institute, report in PLOS ONE a study in which ten untrained Goffin's cockatoos [Cacatua goffini] faced a puzzle box showing food (a nut) behind a transparent door secured by a series of five different interlocking devices, each one jamming the next along in the series. To retrieve the nut the birds ...

Solving one problem in order to gain access to another, which will enable you to address a third problem (and so on) in order to finally reach a goal – so-called sequential problem solving – is considered to be cognitively highly challenging as it requires the ability to spatially and mentally distance oneself from a desired goal. In the study, ten untrained cockatoos faced a puzzle box showing a nut behind a transparent door closed by five different interlocking devices, each one jamming the next along the series and each required different motor actions in order to ...

New research from Western University unravels a novel means of communication that allows bacteria such as Burkholderia cenocepacia (B. cenocepacia) to resist antibiotic treatment. B. cenocepacia is an environmental bacterium that causes devastating infections in patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) or with compromised immune systems. Dr. Miguel Valvano and first author Omar El-Halfawy, PhD candidate, show that the more antibiotic resistant cells within a bacterial population produce and share small molecules with less resistant cells, making them more resistant to antibiotic ...

Fossil fuel companies have been funding smear campaigns that raise doubts about climate change, writes John Sauven in the latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine. Environmental campaigner Sauven argues: "Some of the characters involved have previously worked to deny the reality of the hole in the ozone layer, acid rain and the link between tobacco and lung cancer. And the tactics they are applying are largely the same as those they used in the tobacco wars. Doubt is still their product." Governments around the world have also attempted to silence scientists who ...

(Boston) – In a study from Boston University's National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL), researchers have generated a map of the cellular circuitry of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of human tuberculosis (TB). This information, which is being published online as an Advanced Online Publication in the journal Nature, sheds new light on the bacterium's ability to survive inactive in the human body for decades, resist treatment and cause disease. M. tuberculosis can cause devastating infections of the lungs and other body sites. In 2011 ...

New research, published today in The Lancet, highlights important information for health professionals and parents about the factors which may increase the likelihood of a baby being born with a birth defect. The findings, from researchers at the Universities of Bradford and Leeds, funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), confirm that the two main factors associated with an increased risk of babies being born with a birth defect are being born to an older mother or to parents who are blood relations. In addition, the research team was also able to ...

A model of great ape history over the past 15 million years has been fashioned through the study of genetic variation in a large panel of humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. The catalog of great ape genetic diversity, the most comprehensive ever, elucidates the evolution and population histories of great apes from Africa and Indonesia. The resource will likely also aid in current and future conservation efforts which strive to preserve natural genetic diversity in populations. More than 75 scientists and wildlife conservationists from around the world assisted ...

Researchers of the Cancer Metabolism group at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), Catalan Oncology Institute (ICO) and the Division of Hematology-Oncology of the University of Cincinnati, led by George Thomas, have discovered a role for ribosomal 5S RNA in the formation of a complex that regulates the stability of p53. Normally, p53 prevents healthy cells from becoming tumorigenic. It is maintained at low levels when cells function properly and increases when there is a cellular damage. The results have been published in the online edition of Cell Reports. Cell ...

Los Angeles, CA (July 3, 2013) – With more and more women representing the 50 states on Capitol Hill every year, many have noted that female politicians are not given the same treatment as males in the media. A recent study from a special mini symposium in Political Research Quarterly (a SAGE Journal) finds that news coverage of female politicians focuses more on character traits and less on their policy arguments than it does for their male counterparts. "There is clear variation across [poltical] races in terms of the focus of news stories," stated study authors Johanna ...

Call it a bird's eye view of migration. Scientists are taking a fresh look at animal movement with a big data approach that combines GPS tracking data with satellite weather and terrain information. The new Environmental-Data Automated Track Annotation (Env-DATA) system, featured in the journal Movement Ecology, can handle millions of data points and serve a hundred scientists simultaneously, said co-founder Dr. Roland Kays, a zoologist with North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. "This is a powerful tool for understanding ...

Physical activity reorganizes the brain so that its response to stress is reduced and anxiety is less likely to interfere with normal brain function, according to a research team based at Princeton University. The researchers report in the Journal of Neuroscience that when mice allowed to exercise regularly experienced a stressor — exposure to cold water — their brains exhibited a spike in the activity of neurons that shut off excitement in the ventral hippocampus, a brain region shown to regulate anxiety. These findings potentially resolve a discrepancy in research ...

A team of scientists at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University has discovered why long-term treatment with many common antibiotics can cause harmful side effects—and they have uncovered two easy strategies that could help prevent these dangerous responses. They reported the results in the July 3rd issue of Science Translational Medicine. "Clinical levels of antibiotics can cause oxidative stress that can lead to damage to DNA, proteins and lipids in human cells, but this effect can be alleviated by antioxidants," said Jim Collins, ...

COLLEGE STATION — Texas A&M University System scientists from the departments of nutrition and food science and poultry science have developed a new medium for the cultivation of beneficial microorganisms called lactobacilli. A better understanding of lactobacilli metabolism can help improve feed efficiency in animals and combat malnutrition in humans, according to the researchers. "Lactobacilli are normal residents of the human gastrointestinal and urogenital tracts, where they promote host health and can be taken as probiotics," said Dr. Joseph Sturino, a Texas A&M ...

Alexandria, VA – Of all the water on Earth, less than 3 percent is available for human use, and as climates change and populations boom, the strategies used to extract it will become increasingly complex. With increasing demand, policymakers, scientists and leaders must recognize the energy-water nexus. The energy-water nexus describes an interdependent relationship that exists between availability of water resources and the energy required to obtain, distribute and utilize them. The way we manage the delicate relationship between energy and water will have major implications ...

VIDEO: Dr. Manikkam Suthanthiran, the Stanton Griffis Distinguished Professor of Medicine, has developed a non-invasive test to detect whether a kidney transplant may be rejected. Click here for more information. NEW YORK (July 4, 2013) -- A breakthrough non-invasive test can detect whether transplanted kidneys are in the process of being rejected, as well as identify patients at risk for rejection weeks to months before they show symptoms, according to a study published in ...

New findings from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital reveal an unconventional control mechanism involved in the production of specialized T cells that play a critical role in maintaining immune system balance. The research appears in the current online edition of the scientific journal Nature. The work focused on white blood cells known as regulatory T cells. These cells are crucial for a balanced immune response. Regulatory T cells suppress other immune system components in order to protect healthy tissue from misguided immune attacks or to prevent runaway inflammation. St. ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — For years, pilots flying into combat have jammed enemy radar to get the drop on their opponents. It turns out that moths can do it, too. A new study co-authored by a University of Florida researcher shows hawkmoths use sonic pulses from their genitals to respond to bats producing the high-frequency sounds, possibly as a self-defense mechanism to jam the echolocation ability of their predators. Echolocation research may be used to better understand or improve ultrasound as a vital tool in medicine, used for observing prenatal development, measuring ...

Physicians at Johns Hopkins say they are encouraged by early results in three patients of their new treatment for gastroparesis, a condition marked by the failure of the stomach to properly empty its contents into the small intestine. In an article published online today in the journal Endoscopy, they describe how the placement of a small metal stent in the stomach can improve life for people who suffer from severe bouts of nausea, abdominal pain and vomiting that accompany the condition. John Clarke, M.D., assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University ...

Johns Hopkins cancer scientists have discovered that a little-described gene known as FAM190A plays a subtle but critical role in regulating the normal cell division process known as mitosis, and the scientists' research suggests that mutations in the gene may contribute to commonly found chromosomal instability in cancer. In laboratory studies of cells, investigators found that knocking down expression of FAM190A disrupts mitosis. In three pancreatic cancer-cell lines and a standard human-cell line engineered to be deficient in FAM190A, researchers observed that cells ...