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200,000 rice mutants available worldwide for scientific investigation

Blacksburg, Va. - Scientists across the world are building an extensive repository of genetically modified rice plants in the hope of understanding the function of the approximately 57,000 genes that make up the genome of Oryza sativa.

Study critiques corn-for-ethanol's carbon footprint

To avoid creating greenhouse gases, it makes more sense using today's technology to leave land unfarmed in conservation reserves than to plow it up for corn to make biofuel, according to a comprehensive Duke University-led study.

Low levels of vitamin B12 may increase risk for neural tube defects

Children born to women who have low blood levels of vitamin B12 shortly before and after conception may have an increased risk of a neural tube defect, according to an analysis by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, Trinity College Dublin, and the Health Research Board of Ireland.

Startling numbers of active-military personnel engaging in frequent binge drinking

Binge drinking is common among active-duty military personnel and is strongly associated with many health and social problems, including problems with job performance and alcohol-impaired driving, according to a new study released by the University of Minnesota and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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Household chemicals may be linked to infertility

Researchers have found the first evidence that chemicals widely used in everyday items such as food packaging, pesticides, clothing, upholstery, carpets and personal care products may be associated with infertility in women.

Feeling your words: Hearing with your face

The movement of facial skin and muscles around the mouth plays an important role not only in the way the sounds of speech are made, but also in the way they are heard according to a study by scientists at Haskins Laboratories, a Yale-affiliated research laboratory.

New Technique Lets Doctors Examine Milk Ducts for Breast Problems

A new technique enables doctors to directly examine the lining of milk ducts in the breast for early signs of cancer and other abnormalities, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The researchers used the technique, known as ductoscopy, to detect breast abnormalities in women with a condition called pathologic nipple discharge (PND).

Noisy inner life of cells

Within the smoothly operating factory that is the cell, tiny molecular machines carry out their tasks with order and certainty. Or at least that's what many scientists once believed. In a recent issue of Science, researchers report the first demonstration that bacterial cells intrinsically possess a significant degree of randomness or "noise." More precisely, they show that key "gene-reading" machines may operate unpredictably, resulting in randomly fluctuating amounts of individual proteins.

Test could reduce need for biopsies in prostate disease

Just a drop, that's all we need Men who test positive for elevated prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels sometimes freak out because they think it means they have cancer. To find out, a surgeon will often perform a biopsy. But researchers from the National Cancer Institute and the Food and Drug Administration report that a new test using a single drop of blood could help distinguish between prostate cancer and benign conditions. The trick is identifying patterns of proteins found in patients' blood serum.

Bloodworm shows new use for copper

No other worm looks like it, or lasts like it The lowly and somewhat gruesome bloodworm may have a few lessons to teach material scientists.The critter apparently is the first ever to be found to use a copper-containing mineral structure as part of its skeleton. The finding is remarkable first because the amount of copper detected in the jaw tip of the marine worm would normally be toxic to an organism. Second, the copper also occurs in non-mineral form in the bloodworm jaw where it may act as a sort of bridge, cross-linking long chains of fibrous proteins. And that has appealing commercial posibilities. "The marriage of protein with copper mineral as well as with bound copper ions is an intriguing concept per se but may also serve as a design prototype for new materials that need to be hard, lightweight, and durable."

Scientists Decipher Genetic Code of Malaria Parasite

Closer to a cure FROM THE TRENCHES: A consortium of scientists announced that it has deciphered the genetic code of the parasite that causes the deadliest form of Malaria, an illness that kills more than a million people a year in developing nations.

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And then there were three

I just don't get those guys anymore.... (Photo by Lori Eggert, UCSD) You learn a lot analyzing dung. Sampling specimens from wild African elephants, UC San Diego researchers have found the continent is home to three distinct types of Proboscidia, not two. Apparently the distinction in the past was between savanna and forest elephants. Now it turns out a third, genetically distinct species has evolved that swings both ways.

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