Since 1996, crop plants genetically modified to produce bacterial proteins that are toxic to certain insects, yet safe for people, have been planted on more than 200 million hectares worldwide. The popularity of these Bt crops, named after the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, comes from their ability to kill some major pests, allowing farmers to save money and lessen environmental impacts by reducing insecticide sprays.
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A new species of chameleon has been discovered in Tanzania by a team of scientists.
Dr Andrew Marshall, from the Environment Department at the University of York, first spotted the animal while surveying monkeys in the Magombera Forest when he disturbed a twig snake eating one.
The specimen was collected, tested and compared to two others found by scientists in the same area and has now been named Kinyongia magomberae (the Magombera chameleon) in research published in the African Journal of Herpetology.
Amphibians like frogs and toads have existed for 360 million years and survived when the dinosaurs didn't, but a new aquatic fungus is threatening to make many of them extinct, according to an article in the November issue of Microbiology Today.
The fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), was found to be associated with waves of amphibian extinctions in Central America and north-eastern Australia in the 1990's. Bd infects over 350 amphibian species by penetrating their skin, but little else is known about where it came from and how it causes disease.
Not just birds, but also a few species of bats face a long journey every year. Researchers at Princeton University in the U.S. and at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell, Germany studied the migratory behaviour of the largest extant family of bats, the so-called "Vespertilionidae" with the help of mathematical models. They discovered that the migration over short as well as long distances of various kinds of bats evolved independently within the family (PLoS One, October 21st, 2009).
Carlos María Romeo Casabona is Director of the Interuniversity Professorship in Law and the Humane Genome at Deusto University and the University of the Basque Country. The Professorship is largely made up of jurists but also has other experts such as researchers in the fields of molecular biology, medicine and even specialists in ethics.
Animal studies suggest that adding flaxseed oil to the diet could reduce the risk of osteoporosis in post-menopausal women and women with diabetes, according to a report to be published in the International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition and Public Health.
Scientists have revealed how environmental irritants such as air pollution and cigarette smoke cause people to cough, in research published today in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. The authors of the study, from Imperial College London and the University of Hull, have identified the reaction inside the lungs that can trigger coughing when a person is exposed to particular irritants in the air. They suggest that their findings may ultimately lead to the development of new treatments for chronic coughing.
People who have kidney transplants need longer-term support than most friends, relatives or even healthcare professionals realise, according to a study of 160 patients published in the December issue of the UK-based Journal of Advanced Nursing.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – For the first time, scientists have demonstrated that stem cells found in amniotic fluid meet an important test of potential to become specialized cell types, which suggests they may be useful for treating a wider array of diseases and conditions than scientists originally thought.
A protein known to stimulate blood vessel growth has now been found to be responsible for the cell overgrowth in the development of polyps that characterize one of the most severe forms of sinusitis, a study by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests. The finding gives scientists a new target for developing novel therapies to treat this form of the disease, which typically resists all current treatments.
CINCINNATI -- Children exposed prenatally to tobacco smoke and during childhood to lead face a particularly high risk for ADHD, according to research done at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.
The study estimates that up to 35 percent of ADHD cases in children between the ages of 8 and 15 could be reduced by eliminating both of these environmental exposures. This could translate into up to 800,000 children
A team of pioneering South Korean scientists have succeeded in producing the polymers used for everyday plastics through bioengineering, rather than through the use of fossil fuel based chemicals. This groundbreaking research, which may now allow for the production of environmentally conscious plastics, is published in two papers in the journal Biotechnology and Bioengineering to mark the journal's 50th anniversary.
On the skin's surface, bacteria are abundant, diverse and constant, but inflammation is undesirable. Research at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine now shows that the normal bacteria living on the skin surface trigger a pathway that prevents excessive inflammation after injury.
"These germs are actually good for us," said Richard L. Gallo, MD, PhD, professor of medicine and pediatrics, chief of UCSD's Division of Dermatology and the Dermatology section of the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System.
A commonly inherited gene deletion can increase the likelihood of immune complications following bone marrow transplantation, an international team of researchers reports in the November 22 advance online issue of Nature Genetics. When the gene, called UGT2B17, is missing from the donor's genome but present in the recipient's, transplants have a significantly greater risk of a serious side-effect known as graft-versus-host disease, in which immune cells from the donor attack tissues in the recipient.
NEW YORK (Nov. 22 2009) -- Physician-scientists from Weill Cornell Medical College have discovered a molecular mechanism that may prove to be a powerful target for the treatment of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of cancer that affects lymphocytes, or white blood cells. By exploiting this mechanism, researchers have been able to powerfully suppress tumor formation in lab testing and in animal models.