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WASHINGTON (Nov. 22, 2015) - A trio of global health law experts from Georgetown warn the window for fundamental reform of the International Health Regulations -- opened by the Ebola epidemic -- is 'rapidly closing.'

A personalized method for testing the effectiveness of drugs that treat multiple myeloma may predict quickly and more accurately the best treatments for individual patients with the bone marrow cancer. The process, developed by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, also may aid patients with leukemia or lymphoma.

The screening method suggests which commonly prescribed multiple myeloma drug, or combination of drugs, a physician should consider first for a particular patient. The test also suggests optimum dosage.

For a beholder who is an evolutionary biologist, the eye is has long been a fascinating puzzle because of the many parts that must seamlessly work together for the whole to work properly. Biologists have addressed the question of ocular evolution with comparisons between different species, or macroevolutionary studies, and shown how the evolutionary process can be broken down into discrete steps through which a simple light-sensitive cell can evolve into a complex, multicomponent eye through adaptation.

Researchers at the University of Toronto examined fungi in the mucus of patients with cystic fibrosis and discovered how one particularly cunning fungal species has evolved to defend itself against neighbouring bacteria.

Researchers at Linköping University in Sweden have created analog and digital electronics circuits inside living plants. The group at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics (LOE), under the leadership of Professor Magnus Berggren, have used the vascular system of living roses to build key components of electronic circuits.

The article featured in the journal Science Advances demonstrates wires, digital logic, and even displays elements - fabricated inside the plants - that could develop new applications for organic electronics and new tools in plant science.

More than half of all tree species in the world's most diverse forest--the Amazon--may be globally threatened, according to a new study.

But the study also suggests that Amazonian parks, reserves, and indigenous territories, if properly managed, will protect most of the threatened species.

The findings were announced by a research team comprising 158 researchers from 21 countries, led by Hans ter Steege of Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands and Nigel Pitman of The Field Museum in Chicago, USA.

Forests in the Amazon have been declining since the 1950s, but scientists still have a poor understanding of how this has affected populations of individual species.

The new study, published this week in the journal Science Advances, compared data from forest surveys across the Amazon with maps of current and projected deforestation to estimate how many tree species have been lost, and where.

A James Cook University scientist says a new study shows more than half of all tree species in the world's most diverse forest -- the Amazon -- may be globally threatened.

Long-time Amazon researcher, Professor William Laurance from JCU, is a co-author of the study, published this week in the journal Science Advances.

It compared data from forest surveys across the Amazon with maps of current and projected deforestation to estimate how many tree species have been lost, and where.

Washington, DC - November 20, 2015 - A team of Belgian researchers has shown that the yeasts used to ferment cocoa during chocolate production can modify the aroma of the resulting chocolate. "This makes it possible to create a whole range of boutique chocolates to match everyone's favorite flavor, similar to wines, tea, and coffee," says Jan Steensels, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Leuven, and the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology, Belgium.

Cold Spring Harbor, NY - Adding a spoonful of sugar to coffee makes it sweeter, but in plants, researchers have discovered, the addition of sugar molecules to particular proteins plays a surprising variety of roles in basic developmental processes.

When the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission of GPM core satellite analyzed Tropical Storm In-fa, data showed the storm had become better organized over the previous 24 hours. After GPM, NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided a visible image that confirmed a better-organized storm.

Nanomedicine, a leading MEDLINE-indexed journal, has published a special focus issue highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of this emerging field, which explores the medical application of nanotechnology to monitor, repair, and control human biological systems at the molecular level. Nanomedicine is published by Future Science Group.

A crucial tumor-thwarting gene protects an immune attack against lung cancer by blocking the key to an off switch on T cells, the customized warriors of the immune system, a team led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reports in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

"London is a clear example of this situation. Although the economic crisis affects the United Kingdom and the behaviour of its economy depends on the action of its cities internationally, London, as a global city, depends less on the behaviour of the internal market. Exactly the same thing happens with Paris; during the most recent recession in the United States, no crisis was spotted anywhere in New York.

Fiddler crabs use polarization vision to sense the approach of rivals, scientists at the University of Bristol have found. The research, carried out in Panama, is the first field-based evidence that animals use polarization vision to enhance the detection of objects.