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23andMe, Inc., the leading personal genetics company, today announced the results of one of the largest genome-wide association studies of its kind, identifying genetic variants associated with being a morning person.

Published in Nature Communications the study identified 15 locations in DNA (loci) associated with "morningness."

In most societies, surnames are passed on from father to son, just like the Y chromosome. This suggests that men who share the same surnames may have Y chromosomes that are related to one another. A new study analyses this correlation in Spain and reveals that a large number of men who are bearers of the same unusual surnames are distant relatives.

Incomplete information is leaving many endangered species off conservation priorities.

The majority of species are poorly known, many only from a handful of museum specimens. This makes determining the conservation status of these species difficult, with many ending up being assigned as Data Deficient under the IUCN Red List.This 'Data Deficient' labelling then prevents them from appearing on the Red List as endangered or at risk and so prevents them from receiving the conservation attention they urgently require.

Neuherberg, February 2, 2016. Scientists at the Helmholtz Zentrum München discover that extracts of the medicinal plant Cistus incanus (Ci) prevent human immunodeficiency viruses from infecting cells. Active antiviral ingredients in the extracts inhibit docking of viral proteins to cells. Antiviral activity of Cistus extracts also targets Ebola- and Marburg viruses. The results were published in Scientific Reports*.

February 02, 2016. Height is largely genetically determined, but in recent decades the height of children and adults has steadily increased throughout the world: In adulthood the children are almost always significantly taller than their parents. The largest increase in height in recent decades is found in the Netherlands. Dutch men are now 20 cm taller than they were 150 years ago. Interestingly, in the Netherlands the per capita consumption of milk and dairy products is the highest in the world.

Researchers often analyse isolated biomolecules in test tubes, and it is doubtful if the results can be applied to densely-packed cells. A team from Bochum, Dortmund and Greifswald monitored the folding of an RNA structure in the living cell and compared the results with those of test tube analyses.

The team studied the behaviour of an RNA structure from the microorganism Salmonella in three different scenarios: in a living cell; in an aqueous solution without additives; and in an aqueous solution with various additives that were supposed to mimic the molecules in the cells.

New research shows that a small minority of cancer cells in neuroendocrine tumours of the pancreas contribute to the overall growth and metastasis of the tumour. This discovery was made by a research group at Lund University, in collaboration with researchers at Karolinska Institutet, in Sweden.

The findings are of fundamental biological importance for the understanding of the different functions of cancer cells, and are now published in the scientific journal PNAS.

Long-term use antiseptic soap in bathing critically ill patients to prevent healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) did not cause high levels of resistance in bacteria on the patients' skin, according to a new study published online in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA).

New research findings published in the February 2016 issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology, suggest that a new therapeutic strategy for HIV may already be available by repurposing an existing prescription drug. The drug, an enzyme called adenosine deaminase, or ADA, ultimately may be able to activate the immune system against HIV and to help the immune system "remember" the virus to prevent or quickly eliminate future infection.

Researchers from the General Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (GPI RAS) and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) have developed a new biosensor test system based on magnetic nanoparticles. It is designed to provide highly accurate measurements of the concentration of protein molecules (e.g. markers, which indicate the onset or development of a disease) in various samples, including opaque solutions or strongly coloured liquids.

Blombos Cave in South Africa has given us vast knowledge about our early ancestors. In 2015, four open access articles, with research finds from Blombos as a starting point, have been published in the journal PLOS ONE.

"We are looking mainly at the part of South Africa where Blombos Cave is situated. We sought to find out how groups moved across the landscape and how they interacted," says Christopher S. Henshilwood, Professor at the University of Bergen (UiB) and University of the Witwatersrand and one of the authors of the articles.

The technology of our ancestors

Researchers from the Institut Pasteur, Inserm, CNRS and Paris Descartes - Sorbonne Paris Cité University recently published a large-scale study in Nature Genetics based on almost 7,000 strains of Listeria monocytogenes -- the bacterium responsible for human listeriosis, a severe foodborne infection. Through the integrative analysis of epidemiological, clinical and microbiological data, the researchers have revealed the highly diverse pathogenicity of isolates belonging to this bacterial species.

Congenital disorders such as Down's syndrome could be better understood, following new insights into how healthy cells are formed.

Scientists have identified a set of proteins that play a key role in preventing errors during the formation of healthy cells.

The results may shed light on the mechanisms involved in formation of healthy egg cells in humans, and aid understanding of how infertility, stillbirths and birth defects arise.

Philadelphia, PA, February 1, 2016 - Gun deaths are a serious public health issue in the United States and the scope of the problem is often difficult to illustrate. A new study published in The American Journal of Medicine lays out the risk in concrete terms. When compared to 22 other high-income nations, Americans are ten times more likely to be killed by a gun than their counterparts in the developed world. Specifically, gun homicide rates are 25 times higher in the U.S. and, while the overall suicide rate is on par with other high-income nations, the U.S.

A group of researchers led by Dr. James Dunn out of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) are pleased to announce publication of their research in an upcoming issue of the journal TECHNOLOGY. The report, part of a thesis project of first author Christopher Walthers, Ph.D, was co-authored by Chase Lyall, M.S., Alireza Nazemi, M.S., and Puneet Rana, M.S.