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Research team unravels tomato pathogen's tricks of the trade

For decades, scientists and farmers have attempted to understand how a bacterial pathogen continues to damage tomatoes despite numerous agricultural attempts to control its spread.

Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato is the causative agent of bacterial speck disease of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), a disease that occurs worldwide and causes severe reduction in fruit yield and quality, particularly during cold and wet springs.

In the spring of 2010, for example, an outbreak in Florida and California devastated the harvest in those areas.

UC research finds that a duck's boon might be a turtle's bane

Duck nest boxes used to aid cavity-nesting ducks can prove to be turtle death traps.

That was the discovery made by University of Cincinnati Educator Associate Professor Denis Conover, of the Department of Biological Sciences in UC's McMicken College of Arts and Sciences, when he came upon a duck nest box in the wetlands of southern Ohio's Miami Whitewater Forest. The box had tipped over. Turtle corpses were strewn about the mud and mire surrounding the fallen nesting box. Several species of turtles had been trapped by the box, and not all of them made it out alive.

Erasing the signs of aging in cells is now a reality

Inserm's AVENIR "Genomic plasticity and aging" team, directed by Jean-Marc Lemaitre, Inserm researcher at the Functional Genomics Institute (Inserm/CNRS/Université de Montpellier 1 and 2), has recently succeeded in rejuvenating cells from elderly donors (aged over 100). These old cells were reprogrammed in vitro to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) and to rejuvenated and human embryonic stem cells (hESC): cells of all types can again be differentiated after this genuine "rejuvenation" therapy.

Caucasians: Avoiding sun exposure too much leads to vitamin D deficiency

STANFORD, Calif. — Light-skinned people who avoid the sun are twice as likely to suffer from vitamin D deficiency as those who do not, according to a study of nearly 6,000 people by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Surprisingly, the use of sunscreen did not significantly affect blood levels of vitamin D, perhaps because users were applying too little or too infrequently, the researchers speculate.

Researchers help in search for new ways to image, therapeutically target melanoma

TAMPA, Fla. (Nov. 3, 2011) – Because the incidence of malignant melanoma is rising faster than any other cancer in the U.S., researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., and colleagues at Tampa-based Intezyne Technologies, Inc., Western Carolina University and the University of Arizona are working overtime to develop new technologies to aid in both malignant melanoma diagnosis and therapy. A tool of great promise comes from the world of nanomedicine – where tiny drug delivery systems are measured in the billionths of meters and are being designed to deliver targeted therapies.

New analysis from the Nurses' Health Study: Association of alcohol with risk of breast cancer

A well-done analysis by Chen WY et al, published in JAMA assesses the association of moderate alcohol consumption during adult life, drinking patterns, and breast cancer risk. The authors use prospectively collected data from the 105,986 women enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study followed up from 1980 until 2008 with an early adult alcohol assessment and 8 follow ups.

Caltech researchers find pulsating response to stress in bacteria

PASADENA, Calif.—If the changing seasons are making it chilly inside your house, you might just turn the heater on. That's a reasonable response to a cold environment: switching to a toastier and more comfortable state until it warms up outside. And so it's no surprise that biologists have long thought cells would respond to their environment in a similar way.

Climate change causing massive movement of tree species across the West

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A huge "migration" of trees has begun across much of the West due to global warming, insect attack, diseases and fire, and many tree species are projected to decline or die out in regions where they have been present for centuries, while others move in and replace them.

In an enormous display of survival of the fittest, the forests of the future are taking a new shape.

Born to roar

SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 2, 2011 – When lions and tigers roar loudly and deeply – terrifying every creature within earshot – they are somewhat like human babies crying for attention, although their voices are much deeper.

So says the senior author of a new study that shows lions' and tigers' loud, low-frequency roars are predetermined by physical properties of their vocal fold tissue – namely, the ability to stretch and shear – and not by nerve impulses from the brain.

Lions and tigers are born to roar

Lions' and tigers' fearsome roars are due to their unusual vocal cords, according to a study published in the Nov. 2 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE.

The authors report that the big cats' vocal cards have an odd square shape and can withstand strong stretching and shearing. That shape "makes it easier for the tissue to respond to the passing airflow," allowing louder roars at lower lung pressure, says University of Utah researcher Tobias Riede, one of the researchers involved in the project.

Effectiveness and safety of FEIBA for hemophilia confirmed

An international research team led by Dr. Cindy Leissinger of Tulane University School of Medicine, along with Dr. Alessandro Gringeri from the University of Milan, has found that a drug commonly used to treat bleeding events in people with a type of severe hemophilia can also be used to prevent such events from happening in the first place. The study, the first to confirm the efficacy and safety of the drug FEIBA™ in bleed prevention is published in the Nov. 3, 2011 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

NIH scientists outline steps toward Epstein-Barr virus vaccine

WHAT:Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infects nine out of ten people worldwide at some point during their lifetimes. Infections in early childhood often cause no disease symptoms, but people infected during adolescence or young adulthood may develop infectious mononucleosis, a disease characterized by swollen lymph nodes, fever and severe fatigue. EBV also is associated with several kinds of cancer, including Hodgkin lymphoma and stomach and nasal cancers.

Evolution offers clues to leading cause of death during childbirth

Unusual features of the human placenta may be the underlying cause of postpartum hemorrhage, the leading cause of maternal deaths during childbirth, according to evolutionary research at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Defined as the loss of more than a pint of blood during or just after vaginal delivery, postpartum hemorrhage accounts for nearly 35 percent, or 125,000, of the 358,000 worldwide annual maternal deaths during childbirth.

Fruit fly intestine may hold secret to the fountain of youth

One of the few reliable ways to extend an organism's lifespan, be it a fruit fly or a mouse, is to restrict calorie intake. Now, a new study in fruit flies is helping to explain why such minimal diets are linked to longevity and offering clues to the effects of aging on stem cell behavior.

Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and their collaborators found that tweaking a gene known as PGC-1, which is also found in human DNA, in the intestinal stem cells of fruit flies delayed the aging of their intestine and extended their lifespan by as much as 50 percent.

Unraveling the causes of the Ice Age megafauna extinctions

Was it humans or climate change that caused the extinctions of the iconic Ice Age mammals (megafauna) such as the woolly rhinoceros and woolly mammoth?

For decades, scientists have been debating the reasons behind these enigmatic Ice Age mass extinctions, which caused the loss of a third of the large mammal species in Eurasia and two thirds of the species in North America.