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Farmers who used pesticides that spared bees but sacrificed killed other insects might be ignoring important sources of crop pollination, according to an Australian-led international scientific study.

University of Queensland plant ecologist Dr Margie Mayfield said many crops --including mangoes, custard apples, kiwi fruit, coffee and canola --depended on non-bee insect pollinators such as flies, butterflies, moths, beetles, wasps, ants, and thrips.

ATLANTA--A novel class of antimicrobials that inhibits the function of a key disease-causing component of bacteria could be effective in fighting methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), one of the major drug-resistant bacterial pathogens, according to researchers at Georgia State University.

Future Medicinal Chemistry, a leading MEDLINE-indexed journal, published by Future Science Group, has released a special focus issue highlighting the latest breakthroughs at the intersection of medicinal chemistry and chemical biology.

A Rhode Island Hospital and The Miriam Hospital study found that a small percentage of nursing home patients carrying multi drug-resistant bacteria are admitted to hospitals without showing symptoms caused by the bacteria. The research, published in the American Journal of Infection Control, highlights the importance of hospital and nursing home infection control practices.

Controlling the spread of such bacteria is paramount since infections caused by these microorganisms are associated with increased morbidity, mortality and cost.

PITTSBURGH, Nov. 30, 2015 - International telepathology consultations can significantly improve patient care, according to a new study by UPMC and KingMed Diagnostics researchers. Their review of more than 1,500 pathology cases submitted electronically to UPMC over three years found that consultation with UPMC pathologists resulted in significantly altered treatment plans for more than half of the cases in which a patient's primary diagnosis had been provided from referring hospitals in China.

FORT PIERCE, FL - In citrus fruit, the color of the peel is a major factor in consumer selection; fresh oranges with a dark orange peel are favored. In order to appeal to consumer preferences, citrus that is picked when it hasn't reached peak color is often "degreened", and then may be treated with an emulsion containing Citrus Red No.2 (CR2) to improve peel color. A new study reveals three food grade colorants that are promising natural alternatives to CR2.

Research from North Carolina State University finds that more than 40 percent of young adults no longer live with their parents, but still receive at least some financial support from mom and dad - and this is particularly true for grown children from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. The bad news for college students is that attending a four-year education makes them more likely to rely on parental financial support - but the good news is that attending college also makes them more likely to become completely independent over time.

A collaboration between researchers at the Babraham Institute and the University of Manchester has mapped the physical connections occurring in the genome to shed light on the parts of the genome involved in autoimmune diseases. Using a new technique, called Capture Hi-C, the team revealed novel insights into how changes in the genetic sequence have a biological effect and increase the risk of disease.

If rubbish is too big and unwieldy for normal household waste, its removal becomes the job of specialized experts. Researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have now discovered, in cooperation with colleagues from the UK, how large, fused cells help our body to deal with bulky items that may otherwise obstruct normal physiological processes. While scientists have long known about these giant cells, a clear picture of their abilities was still lacking.

Research on the genomes of Pygmy hunter-gatherer populations and Bantu farmers in Central Africa, carried out by scientists from the Institut Pasteur and the CNRS in cooperation with French and international teams(1), has shown for the first time that our habitat and lifestyle can have an impact on our epigenome - the entire system that controls the expression of our genes without affecting their sequence. In this study, the scientists have shown that moving from a forest habitat to an urban environment has a profound impact on the epigenetic patterns of the immune response.

For years, scientific literature -- as well as fisheries management and conservation efforts -- has assumed that the survival of adult fish is relatively constant through time and that most fluctuations in the number of adults come from variation in the number of young that are produced and survive to maturity.

However, new research reveals -- at least for a Pacific marine reef species -- that fluctuating food supplies and competition can alter survival of adult fish and be a major cause of fish populations fluctuating in abundance through time.

The rising atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2), chief among the greenhouse gases fueling global warming and climate change, is beneficial for the physiology of sorghum, an economically and nutritionally important crop grown worldwide. This is the conclusion of a study performed at the University of São Paulo's Bioscience Institute (IB-USP) in Brazil.

Boston- Postmenopausal African American women who use female hormone supplements containing estrogen and progestin ("combination" therapy) are at an increased risk for estrogen receptor positive breast cancer.

The study, which appears in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, found the overall increase in risk was 50 percent, with greater increases for recent and long-term users.

KNOXVILLE --Around 390 million years ago, the first vertebrate animals moved fromwater onto land, necessitating changes in their musculoskeletal systems to permit aterrestrial life. Forelimbs and hind limbs of the first tetrapods evolved to support moreweight. But what specific mechanisms drove changes in bone function?

A rare fossil from eastern North America of a dog-sized horned dinosaur has been identified by a scientist at the University of Bath. The fossil provides evidence of an east-west divide in North American dinosaur evolution.

During the Late Cretaceous period, 66-100 million years ago, the land mass that is now North America was split in two continents by a shallow sea, the Western Interior Seaway, which ran from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean. Dinosaurs living in the western continent, called Laramidia, were similar to those found in Asia.