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Like most annuals, lettuce plants live out their lives in quiet, three-act dramas that follow the seasons. Seed dormancy gives way to germination; the young plant emerges and grows; and finally in the climax of flowering, a new generation of seeds is produced. It's remarkably predictable, but the genetics that coordinates these changes with environmental cues has not been well understood.

As of January 31, 2016, a total of 28,639 cases and 11,316 deaths have been attributed to Ebola, figures that are assumed to significantly underestimate the actual scope of the 2014 Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever outbreak in West Africa. In the United States, there were also two imported cases and two locally acquired cases reported in September/October 2014.

Rising levels of atmospheric nitrogen pollution threaten plant diversity at nearly one-quarter of sites across a widespread portion of the U.S., according a new study led by University of Colorado Boulder researchers.

The findings, which were published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are the first to examine ecosystem-specific vulnerabilities to atmospheric nitrogen pollution on a continental scale.

Boston, MA -- Being able to detect early on whether a cancer therapy is working for a patient can influence the course of treatment and improve outcomes and quality of life. However, conventional detection methods -- such as PET scans, CT and MRI -- usually cannot detect whether a tumor is shrinking until a patient has received multiple cycles of therapy. A new technique developed in pre-clinical models by investigators at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) offers a new approach and a read out on the effectiveness of chemotherapy in as few as eight hours after treatment.

When it comes to the various nanowidgets scientists are developing, nanotubes are especially intriguing. That's because hollow tubes that have diameters of only a few billionths of a meter have the potential to be incredibly useful, from delivering cancer-fighting drugs inside cells to desalinating seawater.

In a study published on 28 March 2016 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and Virginia Commonwealth University have resolved the first protein structure in a family of proteins called transcription terminators. The crystal structure of the protein, called Reb1, provides insight into aging and cancer, according to Deepak Bastia, Ph.D., Endowed Chair for Biomedical Research in the MUSC Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and co-senior author of the study.

A team of researchers with the Fralin Life Science Institute at Virginia Tech, working with a large international consortium, has sequenced the Y chromosome--the genetic driver of sex-determination and male fertility-- in a family of malaria spreading mosquitoes.

The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences today (Monday, March 28) will inform a variety of genetically based mosquito control strategies that focus on creating more males than females.

CCN5, a matricellular protein, has been found to reverse established cardiac fibrosis in heart failure models, according to a study led by Roger J. Hajjar, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Cardiovascular Research Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Woo Jin Park, PhD, Professor of Life Sciences at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), South Korea. This study was published online today in the Journal of American College of Cardiology (JACC).

PHILADELPHIA-- "Specialty drugs" have become important treatment options for many serious and chronic diseases, and in some conditions like cancer they represent the only chance for long-term survival. But, insurers increasingly require patients to share the high costs of these medications. Two new studies led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have found evidence that such cost-sharing arrangements are associated with significant reductions in access to these drugs.

Chemists at The University of Texas at Arlington have devised a safer, more environmentally friendly, less expensive and more efficient water-based system for the synthesis of organic compounds typically used in pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, cosmetics, plastics, textiles and household chemicals.

Most organic synthesis depends heavily on volatile organic solvents, which typically pose significant environmental and health hazards and also are costly.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Chemists have identified the complex chemical structure of the protein that stacks together to form fibrils in the brains of Parkinson's disease patients. Armed with this knowledge, researchers can identify specific targets for diagnosis and treatment.

University of Illinois chemists, collaborating with peers at the University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University and Queen Mary University of London, detailed their mapped structure of the protein in the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology.

LA JOLLA, CA--March 28, 2016--A team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies has discovered two enzymes that appear to play a role in metabolism and inflammation -- and might someday be targeted with drugs to treat type 2 diabetes and inflammatory disorders.

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- Researchers at UC Davis, in collaboration with the other institutions, have found that suppressing the nuclear receptor protein ROR-γ with small-molecule compounds can reduce androgen receptor (AR) levels in castration-resistant prostate cancer and stop tumor growth.

Most non-Africans possess at least a little bit Neanderthal DNA. But a new map of archaic ancestry--published March 28 in Current Biology--suggests that many bloodlines around the world, particularly of South Asian descent, may actually be a bit more Denisovan, a mysterious population of hominids that lived around the same time as the Neanderthals. The analysis also proposes that modern humans interbred with Denisovans about 100 generations after their trysts with Neanderthals.

CORVALLIS, Ore. - A new analysis of the prehistoric origin of malaria suggests that it evolved in insects at least 100 million years ago, and the first vertebrate hosts of this disease were probably reptiles, which at that time would have included the dinosaurs.

Malaria, a scourge on human society that still kills more than 400,000 people a year, is often thought to be of more modern origin - ranging from 15,000 to 8 million years old, caused primarily by one genus of protozoa, Plasmodium, and spread by anopheline mosquitoes.