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DURHAM, N.C. -- Researchers from Duke University, the University of Cincinnati (UC) and the Durham Veterans Administration Medical Center are hoping to find a geographical pattern to help explain why 1991 Gulf War veterans contracted the fatal neurological disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) at twice the normal rate during the decade after the conflict.

MADISON, WI, July 21, 2008 -- Anyone who teaches a large group of students has probably experienced undesirable student behaviors. I taught the introductory college biology course at Syracuse University, and several hundred students attended each lecture.

Marvin Druger, Syracuse University, shares his college teaching experiences and how to deal with inappropriate behavior in an article published in the 2008 Journal of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Education.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – One of the most widely accepted beliefs about the differences between troubled boys and girls may need to be revised, according to new research.

Experts have long believed that girls tend to internalize their problems, becoming depressed or anxious, while boys externalize, turning to violence against people or property.

When individuals infected with HIV become infected with a second strain of the virus, the two viral strains can exchange genetic information, creating a third, recombinant strain of the virus. It is known that the presence of multiple viral strains, called superinfection, frequently leads to a loss of immune control of viral levels. Now a study from the Partners AIDS Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital (PARC/MGH) shows that how and where viral strains swap DNA may be determined by the immune response against the original infecting strain.

Montreal, 17 July 2008 – The question of whether insulin-producing cells of the pancreas can regenerate is key to our understanding of diabetes, and to the further development of regenerative therapies against the disease. Dr Rosenberg from the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) and McGill University together with Dr Bernard Massie from the Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CHUM) have just concluded that they can. The results of their study have been published in the July issue of the journal Laboratory Investigation.

No-take marine reserves where fishing is banned can have benefits that extend beyond the exploited fishes they are specifically designed to protect, according to new evidence from Australia's Great Barrier Reef reported in the July 22nd issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. Researchers have found that outbreaks of large, predatory crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci), which can devastate coral reefs, occur less often in protected zones, although they don't yet know exactly why.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – Physicists at Rutgers and Columbia universities have gained new insight into the origins of superconductivity – a property of metals where electrical resistance vanishes – by studying exotic chemical compounds that contain neptunium and plutonium.

BERKELEY, CA — Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley have performed the first scanning tunneling spectroscopy of graphene flakes equipped with a "gate" electrode. The result is the latest in a series of surprising insights into the electronic behavior of this unique, two-dimensional crystal form of carbon: an unexpected gap-like feature in the energy spectrum of electrons tunneling into graphene's single layer of atoms.

CHICAGO -- Olympic athletes aren't the only ones who need to be concerned about the heavily polluted air in Beijing. The dirty air may trigger serious cardiovascular problems for some spectators.

Two researchers in pulmonary medicine and critical care at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine warn that for people in certain risk groups, breathing high levels of pollution can cause heart attacks and strokes within 24 hours of exposure and increase the possibility of having blood clots in their legs on the plane home.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Researchers from four leading cancer centers have confirmed that an analysis involving a panel of genes can be used to predict which lung cancer patients will have the worst survival. The finding could one day lead to a test that would help determine who needs more aggressive treatment.

The study, the largest of its kind, appears online in Nature Medicine.

Washington, DC — A new expert analysis in Nature Nanotechnology questions whether industry, government and scientists are successfully applying lessons learned from past technologies to ensure the safe and responsible development of emerging nanotechnologies.

The study applies the 12 "late lessons from early warnings," published by the European Environment Agency (EEA) in 2001, to the emerging field of nanotechnology. EEA's "lessons" are drawn from case studies that include the introduction of ozone-damaging halocarbons and of environmentally persistent and toxic PCBs.

ARTICLE #1 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

"Snow flea antifreeze protein" could help improve organ preservationJournal of the American Chemical Society

The replanting of mangroves on the coasts of the Philippines could help save many of the lives lost in the 20-30 typhoons that hit the islands annually. This is one of the numerous reasons for the 'urgent need for immediate and massive mangrove replanting' that J.H. Primavera from the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center and J.M.A. Esteban from De La Salle University, both in the Philippines, cite in a paper published online in the Springer journal Wetlands Ecology and Management(1).

Leading world scientists convene in Brazil July 21-25 amid growing concern that evaporation and ongoing destruction of world wetlands, which hold a volume of carbon similar to that in the atmosphere today, could cause them to exhale billows of greenhouse gases.

STANFORD, Calif. - The study of dark-skinned mice has led to a surprising finding about a common protein involved in tumor suppression, report researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The results may lead to new treatments for bone marrow failure in humans.