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Government lobbying and political connections may add lift to the air transportation industry's profitability, but they could also cause a crash in talented transportation administrators, according to a Penn State Harrisburg researcher.

In a study of 46 companies in the airline transportation industry over the past 15 years, Richard S. Brown, assistant professor of management, found after controlling for other factors, that political lobbying was related to a company's profitability.

CINCINNATI--Researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) James L. Winkle College of Pharmacy are presenting collaborative research on the use of mathematical methods for understanding the transportation of chemical compounds in biological tissues, like the skin.

This could lead to better ways of testing cosmetic or consumer products without harming humans or animals.

Stanford, CA-- Algae may hold the key to feeding the world's burgeoning population. Don't worry; no one is going to make you eat them. But because they are more efficient than most plants at taking in carbon dioxide from the air, algae could transform agriculture. If their efficiency could be transferred to crops, we could grow more food in less time using less water and less nitrogen fertilizer.

Ann Arbor, MI, May 10, 2016 - Drinking alcohol can increase the risk of illness and death from the hepatitis C virus. A new national household study of U.S. adults published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine shows that many people living with hepatitis C report either former or current excessive alcohol use. In addition, hepatitis C-infected adults were three times more likely to drink five or more drinks per day every day at some point in their lives than those without hepatitis C.

LA JOLLA, CA - May 10, 2016 - Call them professional "data wranglers."

A team of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) is expanding web services to make biomedical research more efficient. With their free, public projects, MyGene.info and MyVariant.info, researchers around the world have a faster way to spot new connections between genes and disease.

"This is about how to deliver information quickly to biologists," said Chunlei Wu, associate professor of molecular medicine at TSRI.

Scientists have identified genetic mutations that appear to be a key culprit behind a suite of birth defects called ciliopathies, which affect an estimated 1 in 1,000 births. In a paper published online this week in Nature Genetics, a team of researchers led by The University of Texas at Austin's John Wallingford reveals that these mutations prevent certain proteins from working together to smooth the way for cells to communicate with one another.

In a myriad of workplace settings, standard processes are key to a successful operation, ensuring efficiency and safety. For these processes to work, employees must comply. But what's the best way to go about enforcing that compliance, and sustain it?

Medication that is normally used to lower cholesterol could stop the spread of Lyme disease, according to a new study co-authored by Janakiram Seshu, associate professor of biology at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA).

"Roughly 300,000 cases of Lyme disease are estimated to occur in the US by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention every year," Seshu said. "One of the questions we're asking is how Lyme disease can be stopped before it's transmitted from ticks to humans."

Baltimore, Md. - May 10, 2016 - For years, physicians have told patients that HDL (high-density lipoprotein cholesterol) helps protect them from cardiovascular disease (CVD). And the higher the number, the more the protection. HDL, often considered an independent predictor of heart disease, has been dubbed the "good" cholesterol, thanks to its protective effects. But a new study shows for the first time that HDL's protection depends on the levels of two other blood fats or lipids associated with heart disease.

For the first time, researchers have devised a method to selectively deliver drugs to a pregnant woman's placenta without harming the foetus, in a development which could help prevent some premature births and treat conditions such as pre-eclampsia.

Photosynthetic bacteria that have lived on Earth for 2.7 billion years are the source of a new and valuable biological regulatory tool being developed by Rice University bioengineers.

Synechocystis bacteria produce a protein pathway that senses the presence of UV-violet light and activates a motor protein that moves the single-cell organism into safer surroundings.

An emerging strain of tuberculosis (TB), closely related to human TB, has been killing banded mongoose in Northern Botswana in significant numbers.

This novel pathogen, Mycobacterium mungi, did not infect mongoose through a primary airborne or oral route as normally seen in TB disease in humans and animals. The mechanism of transmission, however, was unknown.

Scientists at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (MNI) have identified novel gene mutations that cause hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP), a step forward in efforts to treat this debilitating disease.

It is estimated that between two and 10 people per 100,000 in the general population have HSP, a disease characterized by weakness or spasticity in the lower limbs. HSP is caused by mutations inherited from one or both parents.

Severe oxygen drops in the water can leave trails of fish kills in their wakes, but scientists thought adult fish would be more resilient to the second major threat in coastal waters: acidification. A new study published Tuesday from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) shows that is not entirely true--where fish are concerned, acidification can make low oxygen even more deadly.

Australian archaeologists have discovered a piece of the world's oldest axe in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia.

The axe fragment is about the size of a thumbnail and dates back to a Stone Age period of 45,000 to 49,000 years ago - at, or very soon after, the time humans arrived on the continent, and more than ten millennia earlier than any previous ground-edge axe discoveries.