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Scientists have identified four new pathogens previously not found in Australian chillies, raising the stakes for the country's quarantine and disease resistance efforts.

The pathogens, all part of the Colletotrichum species, cause a fungal disease called anthracnose, which lowers yield and produces large, sunken black spots on a variety of fruits and vegetables.

While anthracnose already exists in Australia, the discovery of four new pathogens in chillies raises important new questions about how to better protect Australia's horticultural industry.

Researchers identified two types of olfactory receptors in human muscle cells of bronchi. If those receptors are activated by binding an odorant, bronchi dilate and contract - a potential approach for asthma therapy.

This is the conclusion drawn by a team headed by Prof Dr Dr Dr habil Hanns Hatt and Dr Benjamin Kalbe at the Department for Cellphysiology in Bochum. Together with colleagues from various clinics in Bochum, Cologne and Herne, the researchers from Ruhr-Universität Bochum published their report in the journal "Frontiers in Physiology".

Men with very high-risk prostate cancer, who are treated at hospitals with a high proportion of administered radical local treatment (radiotherapy or prostatectomy), only have half of the mortality risk of men who are treated at hospitals with the lowest proportion. This is according to a new study conducted by researchers at Umeå University in Sweden and published in European Urology.

Coatings or paints are materials applied to different surfaces basically for decorative and protective purposes. Yet today the market for these materials is being subjected to increasingly tougher specifications. In addition to being decorative and protective, today's coatings must have additional properties such as, for example, low microorganism-adherence, ease of cleaning or self-repair properties.

For many years, researchers have been trying to understand the origin of the exceptionally long trunks that characterize the body of snakes. This is a mystery in terms of animal development that can shed light on the mechanisms controlling the tissues that form the trunk, including the skeleton and the spinal cord. A research team led by Moisés Mallo from Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC, Portugal) now discovered the key factor that regulates trunk development in vertebrates and explains why snakes have such a strikingly different body.

Australian researchers have discovered that a new class of anti-cancer agents may be effective in treating multiple myeloma, an incurable bone marrow cancer.

The research revealed that the majority of myelomas rely on a protein called MCL-1 to stay alive. Potential drugs that inhibit MCL-1, which are in pre-clinical development, may be a promising new treatment for multiple myeloma.

Looking different to your parents can provide species with a way to escape evolutionary dead ends, according to new research from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL).

The work by researchers at the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences looked at polyploid hybrids in the genus Nicotiana, the group that includes tobacco.

Researchers from James Cook University and Charles Darwin University are using the cutting-edge eDNA (environmental DNA) technique to look for the critically endangered largetooth sawfish in remote northern Australia.

eDNA sampling involves collecting a small sample of the water and analysing it for traces of the DNA of a target species. It has been made possible by huge advances in the field of DNA collection and analysis and is considered a revolutionary technology in the natural sciences.

University of Adelaide researchers are rethinking plant breeding strategies to improve the development of new high-yielding, stress-tolerant cereal varieties.

In a paper published today in the journal Trends in Plant Science, the researchers say small gene-regulating molecules found in plant cells (known as small RNA) are involved in stress adaptation, and they could be exploited to breed plants with favourable stress-tolerant traits.

Thyroid hormones are involved in controlling many functions of the human body: They influence sugar, lipid and protein metabolism, regulate body temperature, heart rate, circulation and many more functions. In children, they also control the development of the brain and nerves as well as bone growth. No wonder that hyperthyroidism has several detrimental effects in the affected patients. Typical symptoms include persistent restlessness, irritability, insomnia, inexplicable weight loss, excessive sweating and an increased pulse.

The social lives of crickets are similar generation to generation, even though the insects can't learn directly from their mum and dad.

New research shows cricket populations have innate habits, so their relationships are organised with each other in similar patterns every year, even though generations never overlap.

"Big Brother" style cameras have been used to record how crickets mate and fight with one another, producing patterns of relationships that form a social network which is remarkably similar each year, even though they can't learn from their parents.

Scientists in their preliminary findings suggest signs of life from under Mars' surface may not survive in rocks excavated by some meteorite impacts.

Pesticides beekeepers are using to improve honeybee health may actually be harming the bees by damaging the bacteria communities in their guts, according to a team led by a Virginia Tech scientist.

MANHATTAN, KS - Homeowners who live in the transition zone, where both cool- and warm-season grasses are options for use in lawns, are looking for low-maintenance turf grasses that also provide year-round color. A new study presents options for maintaining green lawns in the transition zone through the application of turfgrass colorants to zoysiagrass.

TORONTO, ON (Aug. 8, 2016) - Between 3,540 and 6,510 new cancer cases in Ontario each year result from environmental factors, says a new report from Cancer Care Ontario and Public Health Ontario (PHO).