news 2017

For the first time, researchers have proposed the hypothesis that animals that live in climate zones at a safe distance from both the poles as well as the tropics have the most to gain from acclimating to changes in climate. The findings contradict previous research in the field. Acclimation means the ability of both animals and plants to adjust their physiology when it gets hotter or colder.

Making decisions is not always easy, especially when choosing between two options that have both positive and negative elements, such as deciding between a job with a high salary but long hours, and a lower-paying job that allows for more leisure time. MIT neuroscientists have now discovered that making decisions in this type of situation, known as a cost-benefit conflict, is dramatically affected by chronic stress.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A genomic study of Puerto Rico's Africanized honey bees - which are more docile than other so-called "killer bees" - reveals that they retain most of the genetic traits of their African honey bee ancestors, but that a few regions of their DNA have become more like those of European honey bees.

Scientists have created mini biological models of human primary liver cancers, known as organoids, in the lab for the first time. In a paper published , the tiny laboratory models of tumours were used to identify a new drug that could potentially treat certain types of liver cancer. Primary liver cancer is the second most lethal cancer worldwide.

Multidrug resistance of microbes poses a serious global threat to human health. Such resistant strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae significantly reduce therapeutic options for the treatment of Klebsiella-induced, potentially fatal pneumonia or sepsis.

Raising so-called 'good' cholesterol by blocking a key protein involved in its metabolism does not protect against heart disease or stroke, according to a large genetic study of 150,000 Chinese adults published in the journal JAMA Cardiology. There are two types of cholesterol in the blood: LDL-C, so-called 'bad' cholesterol, which is carried in low-density lipoproteins (LDL), and HDL-C, so-called 'good' cholesterol which is found in high-density lipoproteins (HDL).

A part of the immune system once thought to prevent organ damage is actually a leading cause of scarring and heart failure, a study has found. Researchers at Imperial College London discovered that a protein called interleukin 11 (IL-11) plays a key role in the scarring process, which in turn causes heart, kidney and liver failure.

Hundreds of thousands of Amazonian streams are teeming with highly diverse populations of fish species, a new study reveals. Scientists have found that small streams, in areas of the eastern Brazilian Amazon that are a mixture of forest and farmland, contain fauna new to science, as well as very rare species.

Machine learning could improve our ability to determine whether a new drug works in the brain, potentially enabling researchers to detect drug effects that would be missed entirely by conventional statistical tests, finds a new UCL study published today in Brain . "Current statistical models are too simple.

Microbes living in your gut may help protect against the effects of a high-salt diet, according to a new study from MIT. The MIT team, working with researchers in Germany, found that in both mice and humans, a high-salt diet shrinks the population of a certain type of beneficial bacteria. As a result, pro-inflammatory immune cells called Th-17 cells grow in number.

New research sheds light on how social networks can evolve by showing that complex social patterns observed across the animal kingdom may be simpler than they appear. Image credit: Shutterstock New Oxford University research has shed light on the complexities involved in forming social bonds, and suggests that the process is much simpler than first thought.

Combining the innovations of synthetic biology with robotic environmental sampling, a team of University of Bristol researchers are travelling to some of the most 'extreme' environments on Earth, including Atlantic depths of 4.5km, to find new leads which could help in the global fight against antimicrobial resistance.

The Stanford research suggests that any conclusions about stem cell function based on studies of stem cells in lab dishes may now need to be reconsidered in light of the fact that the cells' biology changes during isolation. Stem cells in the body have a significantly different gene-expression profile than do the same cells when they're isolated in a lab dish, according to researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

A new study led by researchers at the Department of Energy's Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), based at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), demonstrates the importance of microbial communities as a source of stable enzymes that could be used to convert plants to biofuels. The study, recently published in the journal Nature Microbiology , reports on the discovery of new types of cellulases, enzymes that help break down plants into ingredients that can be used to make biofuels and bioproducts.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Exposure to the phytoestrogen genistein prior to conception may adversely affect female fertility and pregnancy outcomes, depending on the dosage and duration of exposure, a new study in mice suggests. Chronic preconception exposure to genistein affected pregnancy rates in mice and was associated with prolonged labor, smaller litters and pups, and higher rates of pup mortality, scientists at the University of Illinois report in a paper accepted for publication in the journal Reproductive Toxicology.

Women who consume alcohol around the time of conception could be putting their male offspring at greater risk of obesity in later life. Researchers from The University of Queensland 's Child Health Research Centre investigated how alcohol exposure affected the just-fertilised egg, in one of the first studies to look at alcohol in preconception rather than during pregnancy.

!- Start of DoubleClick Floodlight Tag: Please do not remove Activity name of this tag: UCB001CP Retargeting URL of the webpage where the tag is expected to be placed: http://unknown This tag must be placed between the A new study suggests that many of the state's birds are adapting to rising temperatures by breeding earlier than they did a century ago.

Researchers at MIT and Paris Descartes University have developed a new optogenetic technique that sculpts light to target individual cells bearing engineered light-sensitive molecules, so that individual neurons can be precisely stimulated. Until now, it has been challenging to use optogenetics to target single cells with such precise control over both the timing and location of the activation.

In 2009, the world's largest dinosaur tracks were discovered in the French village of Plagne, in the Jura Mountains. Since then, a series of excavations at the site has uncovered other tracks, sprawling over more than 150 meters. They form the longest sauropod trackway ever to be found.

Yale researchers have found that patients with different types of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have impairments in unique brain systems, indicating that there may not be a one-size-fits-all explanation for the cause of the disorder. Based on performance on behavioral tests, adolescents with ADHD fit into one of three subgroups, where each group demonstrated distinct impairments in the brain with no common abnormalities between them.