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Banning tobacco sales within 1,000 feet of schools could reduce socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities in tobacco density across neighborhoods, according to a study being published today in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research.

Researchers tested the potential impact of a policy banning tobacco sales near schools in the states of New York and Missouri, and results indicate that such a ban would either reduce or eliminate existing disparities in tobacco retailer density by income level and by proportion of African American residents.

A team involving Kobe University researchers has succeeded in developing Target-AID, a genome editing technique that does not cleave the DNA. The technique offers, through high-level editing operation, a method to address the existing issues of genome editing. It is expected that the technique will be applied to gene therapy in the future in addition to providing a powerful tool for breeding useful organisms and conducting disease and drug-discovery research. The findings were published online in Science on August 5 (Japan Standard Time).

DNA is replicated to pass genetic information to the daughter cells during cell proliferation. Replication errors, if not repaired, can lead to genetic mutations. For an individual organism, some DNA mutations may cause disease, even lethality. Robust DNA repair system exists in cells to ensure efficient correction of replication errors, and thus safeguard genetic fidelity. However, a small percentage of replication errors escape DNA repair, and provide an important basis for evolution. Epigenetics studies heritable phenotype changes that are not attributed to changes in DNA sequences.

To understand the cell, it is necessary to study its dynamics at high resolution in space and time in a way that does not adversely affect it. Recently developed superresolution (SR) microscopy breaks the diffraction limit and offers the requisite spatial resolution but usually at the cost of slow imaging speed and excessive damage.

Teams of scientists and labourers from the Department of Water Affairs in Botswana undertook a decades old challenge since the 1970s to combat invasive weeds in wetlands of Botswana, namely the Okavango Delta, off the Kwando-Linyanti-Chobe River and the Limpopo River. Continuous monthly surveys and monitoring of rivers, lagoons and other wetlands resulted in success and shall serve as inspiration in aquatic weeds management.

Insects versus plants in the evolutionary arms race: specialists and generalists

Nanocatalysis has attracted much attention in the past few years. Functionalized materials with a nano-/submicro-dimension display a significant and dramatically powerful catalytic capability than traditional catalysts in organic chemical reactions due to the increased surface area which they provide and multiple catalytic centers in their structures. This is especially true for chiral catalysis and natural product synthesis, where nanocatalysts play an important role in enhancing the yield and TON (turn-over number) of specific chemical products.

A type of sugar found naturally in some women's breast milk may protect new born babies from infection with a potentially life threatening bacterium called Group B streptococcus, according to a new study from Imperial College London.

These bacteria are a common cause of meningitis in new borns and the leading cause of infection in the first three months of life in the UK and globally.

In order for cells to function properly, cargo needs to be constantly transported from one point to another within the cell, like on a goods station. This cargo is located in or on intracellular membranes, called vesicles. These membranes have a signature, and only those with the correct signature may fuse with the membrane of another organelle into one compartment.

The USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture supports NoroCORE, a multidisciplinary research collaborative of 30 researchers from 25 universities who are joining forces to understand and control food borne virus risks.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - How genes in our DNA are expressed into traits within a cell is a complicated mystery with many players, the main suspects being chemical. However, a new study by University of Illinois researchers and collaborators in China has demonstrated that external mechanical force can directly regulate gene expression. The study also identified the pathway that conveys the force from the outside of the cell into the nucleus.

New Orleans, LA - Dr. John England, Professor and Chair of Neurology at LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine, and colleagues in Honduras and Venezuela have reported a new neurological complication of infection with the Zika virus. They described the first confirmed case of Zika-associated sensory polyneuropathy in a paper published online by the Journal of the Neurological Sciences, available at http://www.jns-journal.com/article/S0022-510X(16)30535-4/abstract.

In patients with cancer, initial diagnosis most often includes the detection of the primary or original tumor and the presence or absence of metastases, ie cells from the original tumor that have escaped from their original location and are growing into other tissues of the patient. However, in between 5% and 10% of human tumors this process is done otherwise: metastasis is diagnosed, but the primary tumor is not detected despite various diagnostic testing. This situation is called Cancer of Unknown Primary (CUP).

A new study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) will help researchers understand the ways that marine animal larvae use sound as a cue to settle on coral reefs. The study, published on August 23rd in the online journal Scientific Reports, has determined that sounds created by adult fish and invertebrates may not travel far enough for larvae --which hatch in open ocean--to hear them, meaning that the larvae might rely on other means to home in on a reef system.

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center have identified RNA-based biomarkers that distinguish between normal, aging hematopoietic stem cells and leukemia stem cells associated with secondary acute myeloid leukemia (sAML), a particularly problematic disease that typically afflicts older patients who have often already experienced a bout with cancer.

The findings, published online August 25 in Cell Stem Cell, suggest a new way to predict leukemic relapse early and to identify potential targets for new drug development.