Being Human

According to a report published today, we must all share responsibility for preventing the spread of diseases such as swine flu, SARS, avian influenza, diarrhoeal and skin diseases, and even the common cold.

Although worlds apart, the way fish learn could be closer to humans' way of thinking than previously believed, suggests a new research study.

PITTSBURGH -- A group of researchers led by Carnegie Mellon University Biological Sciences Professor Aaron Mitchell has identified a novel regulatory gene network that plays an important role in the spread of common, and sometimes deadly, yeast infections.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Scientists at Harvard University have shown, for the first time, that intelligence varies among individual monkeys within a species -- in this case, the cotton-top tamarin.

Edmonton -- University of Alberta researchers conducting a water study in the Mackenzie River Delta have found a dramatically higher delivery of mercury from the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean than determined in previous studies.

Treating children with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) usually involves the same steroids-based medication prescribed to adults. But such treatments can have negative side effects for kids and teens dealing with IBD.

NEW YORK, NY -- JUNE 16, 2009 -- The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) announced that results of the largest meta-analysis to date comparing mortality rates for drug-eluting stents (DES) versus bare metal stents (BMS) were published online June 15 in the journal Circulation.

INDIANAPOLIS -- A new study by Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) researchers contradicts the conventional wisdom that living near a fast food outlet increases weight in children and that living near supermarkets, which sell fresh fruit and vegetables as well as so called junk food, lowers weight.

A new diagnostic technique which may greatly simplify the detection of Alzheimer's disease has been discovered by researchers at McGill University and the affiliated Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital (JGH). Their results were published June 8 in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- A research team led by a chemist at the University of California, Riverside has fabricated microscopic polymer beads that change color instantly and reversibly when external magnetic fields acting upon the microspheres change orientation.

RICHMOND, Va. (June 15, 2009) -- A team of Virginia Commonwealth University scientists has discovered a 'magnetic superatom' -- a stable cluster of atoms that can mimic different elements of the periodic table -- that one day may be used to create molecular electronic devices for the next generation of faster computers with larger memory storage.

By using a super-computer to virtually squeeze and heat iron-bearing minerals under conditions that would have existed when the Earth crystallized from an ocean of magma to its solid form 4.5 billion years ago, two UC Davis geochemists have produced the first picture of how different isotopes of iron were initially distributed in the solid Earth.

PHILADELPHIA - -- Psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania have identified a cognitive shortcut, or heuristic, they call "Unit Bias," which causes people to ignore vital, obvious information in their decision-making process, points to a fundamental flaw in the modern, evolved mind and may also play a role in the American population's 30 years of weight gain.

“What makes thunder?” “Why do frogs jump?” “What are we made of?”

Those are the sorts of questions that curious children often spring on unsuspecting schoolteachers -- and that their teachers sometimes struggle to answer.

A team of Virginia Commonwealth University scientists has discovered a ‘magnetic superatom’ – a stable cluster of atoms that can mimic different elements of the periodic table – that one day may be used to create molecular electronic devices for the next generation of faster computers with larger memory storage.

The newly discovered cluster, consisting of one vanadium and eight cesium atoms, act

The vast majority of cancer deaths are due to metastasis, the spread of cancer cells from its primary site to other parts of the body. These metastatic cells tend to move more than their non-metastatic variants but this movement is poorly understood. Scientists are studying cancer cells intently with the hope they can learn to control the movements of the dangerous cells.

An essay in the 13 June issue of New Scientist suggests that people who study engineering in college are more likely to become terrorists or extremists.

It was long believed that conception does not involve a meeting of equals. The egg is a relatively large, impressive biological factory compared with the tiny sperm, which delivers to the egg one copy of the father’s genes.

Researchers at New York University have created a method to precisely bind nano- and micrometer-sized particles together into larger-scale structures with useful materials properties.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have discovered how the mutated huntingtin gene acts on the nervous system to create the devastation of Huntington's disease. The report of their findings is available in Nature Neuroscience online.