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• Female Concave-eared Frogs Draw Mates With Ultrasonic Calls
  Most female frogs don't call; most lack or have only rudimentary vocal cords. A typical female selects a mate from a chorus of males and then -- silently -- signals her beau. But the female concave-eared torrent frog, Odorrana tormota, has a more direct method of declaring her interest: She emits a high-pitched chirp that to the human ear sounds like that of a bird.
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• Fruit Fly Avoidance Mechanism Could Lead To New Ways To Control Pain In Humans
  At first, fruit flies eat like horses. Hatching inside over-ripe fruit where they were laid, they feed wildly in the sugar-rich environment until nature sends them an offer they can't refuse. To survive, they must leave the fruit, wander off and burrow into the earth where they avoid food as if it were poison. Only then can the larvae grow and hatch into flies that will take wing to lay their own eggs. Researchers have now discovered that the important developmental switch from food attraction to aversion in the fruit fly larva is controlled by a timing mechanism in the brain and its sensory system. The study shows how this important avoidance mechanism has been recruited into evolutionary processes to promote development and could lead to new methods of controlling pain in humans and other animals.
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• Hot-air Balloon Research May Improve Tornado Predictions
  Three hot-air balloons dropped asphalt shingles, lumber, sticks, leaves and pine needles onto a north Alabama landfill, so scientists could gather data needed to improve tornado warnings. The payloads dropped by the balloons were similar to the types of debris thrown into the air by tornados that touch the ground. Scientists hope the Doppler radar data collected will be a first step toward programming National Weather Service Doppler radar to recognize tornado debris, so more timely and precise tornado warnings might be issued.
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• Worms Triple Sperm Transfer When Paternity Is At Risk
  Scientists used to think that hermaphrodites, due to their low position in the evolutionary scale, did not have sufficiently developed sensory systems to assess the "quality" of their mates. A new work has shown, however, that earthworms are able to detect the competition by fertilizing the eggs that is going to find its sperm, tripling its volume when there is rivalry. This ability is even more refined as they are able to transfer more sperm to more fertile partners.
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• Gene Linked To Alcohol And Cocaine Dependence
  The search for genes associated with alcohol dependence has recently been extended to the tachykinin receptor 3 gene, located within a broad region on chromosome 4q. Researchers have found that seven of the nine single nucleotide polymorphisms -- DNA sequence variations -- in the 3' region of TACR3 have a significant association with AD as well as cocaine dependence.
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• Tomato Stands Firm In Face Of Fungus
  Scientists have discovered how to keep one's tomatoes from wilting -- the answer lies at the molecular level. Farmers and fellow agriculturalists are continuously battling the ability of plant pathogens to co-evolve alongside their host's immune system. In agriculture, the most environmentally friendly way to combat the evolutionary change in plant diseases is to make use of the innate immune system of plants.
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• One Third of Hospital Toilets Not Properly Cleaned: C. Difficile Germs Linger
  Hospital cleaners should watch out because the toilet police are patrolling with their new secret weapon: invisible markers. A team of Canadian scientists using a lotion which glows under ultraviolet light have shown that up to a third of patient toilets are not properly cleaned. Their findings, also show that spores from the nasty bacteria Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) linger in the loo even when it has been thoroughly wiped down.
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• Human Aging Gene Found In Flies
  Scientists have discovered a fast and effective way to investigate important aspects of human aging: a gene in fruit flies that means flies can now be used to study the effects aging has on DNA. The researchers found that flies with damage to this gene share important features with people suffering from the rapid aging condition Werner syndrome.
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• Number Of Fat Cells Remains Constant From Teenhood In All Body Types
  The radioactive carbon-14 produced by above-ground nuclear testing in the 1950s and '60s has helped researchers determine that the number of fat cells in a human's body, whether lean or obese, is established during the teenage years. Changes in fat mass in adulthood can be attributed mainly to changes in fat cell volume, not an increase in the actual number of fat cells.
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• Warming Up For Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  A new method of magnetic resonance imaging, much faster, more selective -- able to distinguish even among different target molecular species -- and many thousands of times more sensitive, has just been developed. The new technique has the capacity to choose among targets by slight adjustments in temperature.
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• Clues Into How Preeclampsia May Surface In Some Pregnancies
  The COMT gene -- known already for its role in schizophrenia -- has been found to play a role in preeclampsia, according to a report in Nature. The study further suggests that a steroid molecule, 2-ME, may serve as both a diagnostic marker and therapeutic supplement for the treatment of this dangerous pregnancy disorder.
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• Inventor, Engineering Students Explore New Type Of Solar Collectors
  A team of students led by a chemical engineering professor are working with a New Jersey inventor to advance a new solar thermal collector. The engineering students pointed out that this is the first truly new solar thermal system in more than three decades, and the company stated that it is unique among renewable energy technologies as it is cost effective without any government subsidies.
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• Braille Converter Bridges The Information Gap
  A free, e-mail-based service that translates text into Braille and audio recordings is helping to bridge the information gap for blind and visually impaired people, giving them quick and easy access to books, news articles and web pages. Developed by European researchers, the RoboBraille service offers a unique solution to the problem of converting text into Braille and audio without the need for users to operate complicated software.
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• Genetics Confirm Oral Traditions Of Druze In Israel
  DNA analysis of residents of Druze villages in Israel suggests these ancient religious communities offer a genetic snapshot of the Near East as it was several thousands of years ago. The Druze harbor a remarkable diversity of mitochondrial DNA types or lineages that appear to have separated from each other many thousands of years ago, according to a new study by multinational team.
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• Magnet Lab Researchers Make Observing Cell Functions Easier
  Now that the genome of humans and many other organisms have been sequenced, biologists are turning their attention to discovering how the many thousands of structural and control genes -- the "worker bees" of living cells that can turn genes on and off -- function.
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• Groundbreaking Methodology For Identify Cancerous Cells
  Recognizing the distinction between healthy and cancerous cells has traditionally been up to the eye of highly-trained cytologists and pathologists. While the majority of the resulting diagnoses are accurate, new technology can enhance the accuracy and alleviate the physical strain on the human observer. Now scientists have developed an automatic method based on vibrational microspectroscopy that identifies the presence of metastatic cancer cells without the need for staining, and without human input.
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• Scientists Endure Arctic For Last Campaign Prior To CryoSat-2 Launch
  An international group of scientists has swapped their comfortable offices for one of the most inhospitable environments on the planet to carry out a challenging field campaign that is seen as the key to ensuring the data delivered by ESA's ice mission CryoSat will be as accurate as possible.
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• Mechanism Of Action Of Antibiotic Able To Reduce Neuronal Cell Death In Brain Uncovered
  Researchers have discovered how an antibiotic works to modulate the activity of a neurotransmitter that regulates brain functions, which eventually could lead to therapies to treat Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, epilepsy, stroke, dementia and malignant gliomas.
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• Tapping Into Australia's Unique Hot Energy Resources
  Australia is uniquely endowed with heat-producing elements under its surface that could provide potentially unlimited amounts of geothermal power for this country, say geoscientists. West of the line between Cairns and the mouth of the Murray River lies a belt of rocks containing the enriched elements uranium, thorium, and potassium that are around 1.5 billion years old. These enriched elements are essentially a heat source located in the upper part of the continental crust.
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• Reason For Concern In Childhood And Adolescent Obesity
  Childhood and adolescent obesity negatively impacts vascular endothelial function, which relates to cardiac health. Obesity has been increasing rapidly in the U.S. during the past 20 years and obesity in adults has been linked to cardiovascular disease. The incidence of obesity in children is also increasing and many cardiovascular diseases that are manifested in adulthood may actually begin in childhood.
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• 'Early Birds' Adapt To Climate Change
  Individual birds can adjust their behavior to take climate change in their stride, according to a study by scientists from the University of Oxford. A study of the great tit population in Wytham Woods, near Oxford, has shown that the birds are now laying their eggs, on average, two weeks earlier than half a century ago.
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• Anti-virulence Factor In Salmonella Discovered
  Researchers have discovered an anti-virulence factor in Salmonella, knowledge that could be used to design improved Salmonella vaccines. Virulence factors allow a pathogen to thrive in the host and cause disease. An anti-virulence factor controls the degree of infectiveness.
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• Feedstock Makes A Difference In Feeding Distiller's Grains
  When it comes to using distiller's grains in finishing rations of High Plains cattle, scientists say the type of grain used makes all the difference. An AgriLife Research beef nutritionist at Amarillo, said there's been some skepticism about using distiller's grains in this region. Distiller's grains are a by-product of ethanol processing that can be used for animal feed.
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• Molecular Response Of Cartilage To Injury Discovered
  It's an unfortunate fact backed by studies of former professional football and soccer players: injury to joint cartilage escalates the risk of developing of osteoarthritis (OA). However, why this occurs --- the details of how joint cartilage cells respond to acute trauma and how this response leads to progressive cartilage degradation --- remains open to investigation.
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• New Cost-effective Means To Reconstruct Virus Populations
  Researchers from the United States and Switzerland have developed mathematical and statistical tools for reconstructing viral populations using pyrosequencing, a novel and effective technique for sequencing DNA.
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• Nutrition For The Growing Athlete: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
  For millions of American children and teens playing sports, good nutrition is critical for maximum health, performance and normal growth. Yet, with all the information available out there, it's becoming harder than ever for a young athlete to filter truth from myth, and detangle the good from the bad and the ugly, says a pediatric sports nutritionist at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center.
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• 'Wall Paper Peeling Mystery' Explained By Physicists
  When you try to remove adhesive paper from a surface, you inevitably get a pointy flap, while what you want is to remove the entire piece. Physicists have finally explained the physics behind this frustrating experience.
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• Birth Order Linked To Asthma Symptoms
  Among four year-olds attending Head Start programs in New York City, those who had older siblings were more likely to experience respiratory symptoms including an episode of wheezing in the past year than those who were oldest or only children.
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• Dying Bats In The Northeast U.S. Remain A Mystery
  Investigations continue into the cause of a mysterious illness that has killed thousands of bats since March 2008. At more than 25 caves and mines in the northeastern US, bats exhibiting a condition now referred to as "white-nosed syndrome" have been dying. The US Geological Survey recently issued a Wildlife Health Bulletin, advising wildlife and officials throughout the US to lookout for the condition known as "white-nose syndrome" and to report suspected cases of the disease.
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• Of Mice, Rabbits, And Men: New Rabbit Model Of Sudden Cardiac Death Provides Insight Into The Human Disease
  Individuals with long QT syndrome are at increased risk of sudden death due to irregular heartbeats (also known as a cardiac arrhythmias). Although mutations in several genes have been shown to cause the disease, the most commonly affected genes are KCNQ1 and KCNH2.
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• Quantum Cryptography: Researchers Break 'Unbreakable' Crypto
  Quantum cryptography has been regarded as 100-percent protection against attacks on sensitive data traffic. But now a research team in Sweden has found a hole in this advanced technology. The risk of illegal accessing of information, for example in money transactions, is necessitating more and more advanced cryptographic techniques.
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• Intensive Farming Is Fine For Birds And Bees, Says Report
  Eco-friendly plant and animal life have been thriving in intensively managed cereal farms alongside increasing crop yields, according to the first study of its kind. The analysis of 230 farms shows that Government and EU policies which subsidize farmers to protect the environment are - at least to some degree - working.
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• Bread Mold May Unlock Secret To Eliminating Disease-causing Genes
  Scientist have examined a new mechanism in the reproductive cycle of a certain species of mold. This mechanism protects the organism from genetic abnormalities by "silencing" unmatched genes during meiosis (sexual reproduction). The finding could have implications for higher organisms and may lead to precise "targeting" of unwanted genes, such as those from the HIV virus.
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• How Slow Growth As A Fetus Can Cause Diabetes As An Adult
  Intrauterine growth retardation results in a baby having a low birth weight and has been linked to the development of type 2 diabetes in adulthood. It has been suggested that IUGR alters the expression of key genes during fetal development and that this affects disease susceptibility later in life. Evidence to support this hypothesis and indicating that the changes in gene expression are permanent has now been generated using a rat model of IUGR.
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• Method For Integrating Nanowire Devices Directly Onto Silicon Developed
  Scientists have developed a new technique for fabricating nanowire photonic and electronic integrated circuits that may one day be suitable for high-volume commercial production. The fabrication technique could yield low-cost, scalable nanowire photonic and electronic circuits.
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• Novel Insight Into Cardiac Arrhythmias, Sudden Cardiac Death
  A new study provides much-needed insight into the molecular mechanisms that cause arrythmia, or irregular heartbeat, and how it triggers sudden cardiac death, one of the nation's leading killers.
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• Chromosome 'Lassoing': A New Key Mechanism In Cell Division
  Scientists have revealed the function of a protein that is indispensable for passing on an accurate copy of the genome from mother to daughter cells. This study opens up new avenues of research to reduce the toxicity of chemotherapy in the treatment of cancer. The protein can be compared to a cowboy's lasso: it catches chromosomes and ties them to a transitory structure assembled during cell division. Once they have been neatly tied up, the chromosomes await the end of replication to be equally distributed between the two daughter cells.
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• Stroke Survivors Walk Better After Human-assisted Rehabilitation
  Therapist-assisted walking rehabilitation showed greater improvements in walking ability in ambulatory stroke survivors compared to robotic-assisted therapy. Post-stroke patients in both groups improved their walking ability, but the amount of improvement in the physical therapist-assisted group was greater. Robotic devices may be best reserved for acute stroke patients who have no ability to walk on their own.
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• Why Emotional Memories Of Traumatic Life Events Are So Persistent
  Emotional memories of traumatic life events such as accidents, war experiences or serious illnesses are stored in a particularly robust way by the brain. This renders effective treatment very difficult. Researchers have now successfully tracked down the molecular bases of these strong, very persistent memories.
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• How Body Size Is Regulated
  Scientists are beginning to unravel the question why people distinctly vary in size. An international genome-wide study has discovered ten new genes that influence body height and thus provides new insights into biological pathways that are important for human growth.
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• Eel Fishing Multiplies The Accidental Capture Of Other Fish By Eight
  In the Ebro River delta, the fishing of elver (an eel, Anguilla anguilla) leads to the accidental capture of other fish species, with the capture of one ton of elver possibly resulting in the capture of up to 8.2 tons of accompanying species. Researchers who have assessed the effects of this method of fishing and identified the most fragile species, propose improvements in current methodologies.
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• New Study Shows How Genes Control Blood Proteins Important To Health
  A new study shows how genes control levels of many blood proteins implicated in disease. Newly published determine how many of the key proteins within our blood are under genetic control, showing that diet and lifestyle are not the only factors influencing its makeup.
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• Endangered Species Up The Risk Of Extinction For Other Species In Ecological Community
  An endangered species of flora or fauna ups the risk of the extinction of the other species in its ecological community. Trophically unique species are more vulnerable for cascading extinction, according to studies of a team of theoretical biologists.
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• Major Shift In HIV Prevention Priorities Needed, Analysts Urge
  According to a new policy analysis the most common HIV prevention strategies -- condom promotion, HIV testing, treatment of other sexually transmitted infections, vaccine and microbicide research, and abstinence -- are having a limited impact on the predominantly heterosexual epidemics found in Africa.
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• Digging Deeper Into The Genetics Of Schizophrenia By Evaluating MicroRNAs
  Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have illuminated a window into how abnormalities in microRNAs may contribute to the behavioral and neuronal deficits associated with schizophrenia and possibly other brain disorders. They uncovered a previously unknown alteration in the production of microRNAs of a mouse modeled to have the same chromosome 22q11.2 deletions previously identified in humans with schizophrenia.
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• Binge Drinkers Have A Disconnect Between Assessing Their Driving Abilities And Reality
  While many people believe that alcohol-impaired drivers are usually alcoholics, in fact, 80 percent of AI incidents are caused by binge drinkers. A recent study conducted among college students has found that binge drinkers, even when legally intoxicated, nonetheless believe they having adequate driving abilities.
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• Men Are More Likely Than Women To Crave Alcohol When They Feel Negative Emotions
  Women and men tend to have different types of stress-related psychological disorders. Women have greater rates of depression and some types of anxiety disorders than men, while men have greater rates of alcohol-use disorders than women. A new study of emotional and alcohol-craving responses to stress has found that when men become upset, they are more likely than women to want alcohol.
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• Surprising Discovery: Multicellular Response Is 'All For One'
  It has been widely assumed that, in single-celled organisms, each cell perceives its environment -- and responds to stress conditions -- individually. Likewise, it had been thought that cells in multicellular organisms respond the same way. But scientists have now discovered otherwise. In studies of the worm C. elegans, they found that authority is taken away from individual cells and given to two specialized neurons to sense temperature stress and organize an integrated molecular response for the entire organism.
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