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Zika virus infects and crosses the placentas of pregnant mice and causes severe damage or death in fetal mice, report scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health. Investigators from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed two mouse models of Zika infection in pregnancy that will enable rapid testing of experimental Zika drugs to prevent congenital abnormalities, and may aid in better understanding how the virus affects pregnant women.

An international group of 253 scientists has conducted one of the largest genetic studies to date and identified 74 genetic variants that are associated with the years of formal education that an individual completes.

The study was published on May 11 by the journal Nature.

It is known that syphilis rates have varied much between different countries and populations over the past 100 years. A study published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases collates a history of the disease and finds that while rates dropped world-wide in the post-penicillin era after 1945, they remained, up until recently, much higher in Sub-Saharan Africa compared with other regions.

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues in Brazil and Senegal, have described the first "direct experimental proof" that the Brazilian strain of Zika virus can actually cause severe birth defects. The findings are published in the May 11 online issue of Nature.

While heart attack rates across all income levels have declined significantly over the last 15 years, people living in low-income communities are still more likely to be hospitalized for acute myocardial infarction (AMI), according to a new study published by Yale School of Medicine researchers in the journal JAMA Cardiology.

Modern wild sheep, Ovis, is widespread in the mountain ranges of the Caucasus through Himalaya, Tibetan Plateau, Tianshan-Altai, eastern Siberia, and the Rocky Mountains in North America. In Eurasia, fossil sheep are known by a few isolated records at a few Pleistocene sites in North China, eastern Siberia, and western Europe, but are so far absent from the Tibetan Plateau.

PITTSBURGH, May 11, 2016 - Logging on to social media sites frequently throughout the week or spending hours trolling various social feeds during the day is linked to a greater risk of young adults developing eating and body image concerns, a University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine analysis discovered.

A landmark report illustrating the many physical, emotional, financial, practical and informational needs cancer patients experience during and after clinical treatment was released today by CancerCare, a national nonprofit organization that provides free psychosocial support, education and financial assistance to anyone affected by cancer.

• Silver nanowires are an ideal material for current and future flexible touch-screen technologies
• Traditional touchscreen material is facing supply shortfall, as well as being unfit for flexible devices
• Material can be manufactured easily, using less energy than current material

To cope with changes in its aquatic environment and the nutrient deficiencies that may result, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a mobile single-cell alga, must adapt its metabolism for subsistence, notably in terms of sugar. The latter is produced by photosynthesis. To this end, plants and algae use internal cell structures called chloroplasts, which are equipped with protein complexes, the photosystems. If certain nutrients are missing, such as iron, the alga temporarily dismantles its photosystems to recycle some of their components.

A report investigating the educational needs of students with autism has identified social and emotional needs as the top priority to ensure success at school.

The Australian Educational Needs Analysis report was released at the ASPECT Autism in education conference in Melbourne's Convention & Exhbition Centre on Friday May 6.

With an increase in the numbers of children diagnosed with autism in the past 10 years, the report indicated a high rate of exclusion with social and academic needs not often understood or supported.

THE last Ice Age made much of the globe uninhabitable, but there were oases - or refugia - where people 20,000 years ago were able to cluster and survive. Researchers at the University of Huddersfield, who specialise in the analysis of human DNA, have found new evidence that there was one or more of these shelters in what is now Southern Arabia.

Once the Ice Age receded - with the onset of the Late Glacial period about 15,000 years ago - the people of this refugium then dispersed and populated Arabia and the Horn of Africa, and might also have migrated further afield.

A Japanese research group has identified the enzymes that change the grassy odor of plants into a sweeter "green" fragrance. This discovery can potentially be used to grow sweet tomatoes with less of a grassy odor. These findings were published on April 29 in The Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Mountain gorillas from Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda eat up to 30 kilos of plants a day and their diet is highly varied in a habitat that is becoming increasingly fragmented as a result of illegal hunting and deforestation. For the first time, a study shows how dental morphology adapts to the food that is available. The information from the wear on their teeth is used to identify specimens that disappear.

Many cancers could be successfully treated if the patient consulted the doctor sufficiently early. But how can a developing cancer be detected if it doesn't give rise to any symptoms? In the near future, suitably early diagnosis could be provided by simple and cheap chemical sensors - thanks to special recognizing polymer films developed at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw.