Body

In a finding that overturns conventional wisdom, scientists are reporting the first discovery of the female sex hormone progesterone in a plant. Until now, scientists thought that only animals could make progesterone. A steroid hormone, secreted by the ovaries, progesterone prepares the uterus for pregnancy and maintains pregnancy. A synthetic version, progestin, is used in birth control pills and other medications. The discovery is reported in ACS' Journal of Natural Products, a monthly publication.

DURHAM, N.C. -- If a Tiger's feet were built the same way as a mongoose's feet, they'd have to be about the size of a hippo's feet to support the big cat's weight. But they're not.

For decades, researchers have been looking at how different-sized legs and feet are put together across the four-legged animal kingdom, but until now they overlooked the "shoes," those soft pads on the bottom of the foot that bear the brunt of the animal's walking and running.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — With the world awash in information, curating all the scientifically relevant bits and bytes is an important task, especially given digital data's increasing importance as the raw materials for new scientific discoveries, an expert in information science at the University of Illinois says.

Carole L. Palmer, a professor of library and information science, says that data curation – the active and ongoing management of data through their lifecycle of interest to science – is now understood to be an important part of supporting and advancing research.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Transient Ischemic Attacks (TIA) are often called "mini strokes" for good reasons -- the short-term symptoms can mimic a stroke and up to 10 percent of first-time sufferers often experience full-blown strokes within as little as 90 days. Despite the well-known statistics, no post-TIA regimen exists to help prevent future strokes -- but this might be changing.

For the first time, a woman has given birth to two children after her fertility was restored using transplants of ovarian tissue that had been removed and frozen during her cancer treatment and then restored once she was cured.

Following her ovarian transplant, Mrs Stinne Holm Bergholdt gave birth to a girl in February 2007 after receiving fertility treatment to help her become pregnant. But then, in 2008, she discovered she had conceived a second child naturally and gave birth to another girl in September 2008.

Chemists at the University of Helsinki have managed to manufacture new polymer-stabilised silver nanoparticles. The result is significant because the antimicrobial characteristics of silver are used in textiles, floor coatings and paints even though the impact on health of silver nanoparticles are not entirely known. Finnish researchers now think that exposure to silver can be reduced by chemically binding the nanoparticles to polymers. The research results will soon be published in a leading journal in the field, Colloid and Polymer Science.

University of California researchers found that the incidence rate for all causes of dementia in people age 90 and older is 18.2% annually and significantly increases with age in both men and women. This research, called "The 90+ Study," is one of only a few to examine dementia in this age group, and the first to have sufficient participation of centenarians. Findings of the study appear in the February issue of Annals of Neurology, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Neurological Association.