news 2017

Researchers from the University of Bristol studying wild dwarf mongooses have provided insight into what happens when immigrants join a new group. Researchers from the University of Bristol studying wild dwarf mongooses have provided insight into what happens when immigrants join a new group. The study published today in the journal Current Biology shows that, initially, recent immigrants rarely serve as lookout, which means they provide little information in this context to help the rest of the group.

University of Bristol research has revealed how cells rebuild their nucleus and organise their genome when they divide - a discovery which could have major implications for understanding cancer and degeneration. When cells divide, they need to rebuild their nucleus and organise their genome. New collaborative research from the University of Bristol demonstrates how cells achieve this through the unexpected deployment of filamentous actin (F-actin) to the nucleus.

In a surprise ecological finding, researchers discover medium-sized carnivores spend the most time looking for food, making them vulnerable to change. Mammalian predators (commonly called carnivores) spend a significant part of their day foraging for food, and the more time they spend, the more energy they use.

Scientists have found a direct link between physical contact and gut bacteria in red-bellied lemurs. Likely passed through 'huddling' behaviour and touch, the findings suggest implications for human health.

For News Media EMBARGOED BY PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES UNTIL 2 P.M. CST, DEC. Adults who lived high-stress childhoods have trouble reading the signs that a loss or punishment is looming, leaving themselves in situations that risk avoidable health and financial problems and legal trouble.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Two studies - one in mice and the other in human subjects - offer the first definitive evidence that exercise alone can change the composition of microbes in the gut. The studies were designed to isolate exercise-induced changes from other factors - such as diet or antibiotic use - that might alter the intestinal microbiota.

Thyroid hormone therapy significantly resolves fibrosis, or scarring, in the lungs of mice, increasing their survival from disease, a Yale-led study shows. This provides a novel insight into the development of pulmonary fibrosis and could lead to alternative treatment for this serious condition, according to the researchers.

FINDINGS A new UCLA study suggests that the Y chromosome provides protection against the development of pulmonary hypertension and may be the reason the disease is less prevalent among men than women. The researcher found that mice with Y chromosomes were significantly less likely to develop severe pulmonary hypertension than mice without Y chromosomes.

Amniotic fluid, the protective liquid surrounding an unborn baby, is discarded as medical waste during caesarean section deliveries. However, there is increasing evidence that this fluid is a source of valuable biological material, including stem cells with the potential for use in cell therapy and regenerative medicine.

Timing is critical for playing a musical instrument, swinging a baseball bat, and many other activities. Neuroscientists have come up with several models of how the brain achieves its exquisite control over timing, the most prominent being that there is a centralized clock, or pacemaker, somewhere in the brain that keeps time for the entire brain.

Research news Antibodies defend our bodies against intruders. These molecules consist of proteins with attached sugars. However, the blueprint directing the processing of these sugars on the protein was not well understood until now. Scientists from the Technical University of Munich and the Helmholtz Zentrum München used computer analysis to complete this blueprint and confirmed their findings in the laboratory.

Residents and workers in a major Pakistan city are exposed to harmful levels of pesticides, new research reveals. Scientists from Pakistan's F Quaid-i-Azam University and Lancaster University have evaluated the organophosphate pesticide concentration in dust from farms and also from pesticide manufacturing plants in the megacity of Lahore.

FINDINGS Certain language patterns track the body's molecular response to stress more closely than a person's own description of the stress, anxiety or depression that they are experiencing. BACKGROUND Poverty, loneliness or post-traumatic stress disorder can have serious consequences on health, increasing the risk of cancer, Alzheimer's disease and heart disease, among other health problems.

ETH researchers have developed a biocompatible ink for 3D printing using living bacteria. This makes it possible to produce biological materials capable of breaking down toxic substances or producing high-purity cellulose for biomedical applications. There will soon be nothing that cannot be produced with 3D printing.

Research news Medications which block enzymes belonging to the kinase family, are among the most effective pharmaceuticals for targeted cancer therapies. Scientists at the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK) at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have examined 243 kinase inhibitors which are either approved drugs or have been tested in clinical trials.

New research led by the University of Bristol has resolved evolutionary biology's most-heated debate, revealing it is the morphologically simple sponges, rather than the anatomically complex comb jellies, which represent the oldest lineage of living animals. Recent genomic analyses have "flip-flopped" between whether sponges or comb jellies are our deepest ancestors, leading experts to suggest available data might not have the power to resolve this specific problem.

In stressed newborn babies, behaviour alone is not a reliable way of assessing pain, according to new UCL and UCLH research. The study, published today in Current Biology and funded by the Medical Research Council UK, found that hospitalised newborns, who are already stressed by their environment have a much larger pain response in their brain following a routine clinical skin lance than non-stressed babies.

An international collaboration has for the first time revealed the key drivers of seabird migration. The new study suggests that puffin colonies that travel great distances during the winter often find it more difficult to breed than others, and that escaping your habitat with far-flung migration therefore carries a cost.

CHELSEA, Mich.-University of Michigan paleontologists conducted a second excavation this week at the Chelsea-area farm where the skull, tusks and dozens of intact bones of an ice age mammoth were pulled from the ground in late 2015. A U-M news video of the skull and two attached tusks being hoisted from the muddy excavation pit with a backhoe on Oct.

Last year, biologist Susanne Åkesson at Lund University in Sweden, together with researchers in Hungary, received the Ig Nobel Prize in Physics. The prize was awarded to them for their research showing that dark-coated horses suffer more from blood-sucking horseflies compared to their white counterparts.