He saw it. He heard it. But he needed proof.

For almost four years, LSU research associate Daniel Lane was haunted by the memory of an unusual, yellowish bird. He and an associate caught a glimpse of it while bird watching in Peru. They even recorded some of its song. Right away, they knew it was something new. Something different.

Now, thanks to Lane, a specimen of that bird – previously unknown to science – rests in a Lima museum and it will soon bear a name of Lane&#1

Research published online today reveals that many of the world’s carnivores are at greater risk of extinction than previously thought. Close to a quarter of the world’s mammals are already at high risk of extinction. Any chance of reversing this trend depends on understanding what makes some species vulnerable and others resilient. And that depends on being able to predict extinction risk.

Now, a new model based on a phylogenetic analysis of the mammalian order Carnivora, described online

More than 20 percent of preschool children lack required immunizations, placing them and their classmates at risk for illness, according to a new study based on the federal National Immunization Survey.

Whether the children were in day care made no difference in immunization rates, say Carol A. Stanwyck, Ph.D., and two colleagues from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Their work appears in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

“School entry legislation in the

People who often chew aspirin over a prolonged period could severely damage their teeth, according to a case study in this month’s issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA).

“Aspirin can cause severe damage to both the hard and soft tissues of the mouth,” said researchers from the University of Maryland Dental School, Baltimore. “Dentists should counsel and educate patients and other health care practitioners about the dangers to both hard and soft oral tissues from che

From the late 1950s to the end of 1961, thalidomide was a popular sedative and treatment for morning sickness until it was discovered to cause fetal malformations, which proved fatal within the first year of life in 40 percent of affected infants.
The drug was never marketed in the United States or approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. But researchers recognized the drug’s properties might have cancer-fighting potential. This possibility has driven promising studies into thalidomid

The John Innes Centre (JIC)Norwich, has today announced its key role in an EU-funded consortium to develop novel antibiotics in the war against drug-resistant superbugs. The ’CombiGyrase’ consortium of 7 laboratories from Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the UK will receive 1.56 million Euros over three years, with 228,000 Euros (£150,000) going to the JIC.

“There is a lot of concern about the rise of drug-resistant bacteria, so called superbugs, such as MRSA”, says Professo

A natural mutation of a gene that helps regulate the reactivity of the immune system is a major contributor to type 1 diabetes, Medical College of Georgia researchers have found.

The newly discovered gene, SUMO-4, controls the activity of NFêB, a molecule that in turn controls the activity of cytokines, proteins that regulate the intensity and duration of the immune response, according to research that will be published in the August print issue of Nature Genetics and online July 11.

Study describes new approach to treating AIDS-associated syndrome

Increasing the body’s production of growth hormone may be an effective treatment for HIV lipodystrophy, a syndrome involving the redistribution of fat and other metabolic changes in those receiving combination drug therapy for HIV infection. Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) report that administration of growth-hormone-releasing hormone to a group of men with HIV lipodystrophy significantly improve

UCSF researchers have found that some HIV patients treated with antiretroviral therapy early after infection do test negative, at some point, for the virus. Study findings showed this result in six of 87 patients.

“First, these patients are not cured. When these patients went off therapy, HIV virus levels rebounded. These results do show that with effective early treatment that reduces the virus to very low levels, the immune system may have less antibody response to HIV,” said the study&#

Technology opens door for study of cause, treatment of Alzheimer’s

UCLA neuroscientists using a new MRI analysis technique to examine myelin sheaths that insulate the brain’s wiring report that as people age, neural connections that develop last degenerate first. The computer-based analysis method is unique in its ability to examine specific brain structures in living people at millimeter resolution.

Published online by the Neurobiology of Aging earlier this year and sch

News tip from the 2004, XV International Conference on AIDS, July 11-16, Bangkok, Thailand

Researchers at Johns Hopkins and the Perinatal HIV Research Unit, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, have determined that the actual average cost for providing primary care to an HIV-infected patient is $30 USD per visit.

“Health care providers and government policy makers can use the information to plan and prepare budgets for aid programs in South and sub-Saharan Africa, w

Human antibodies that thwart the SARS virus in mice can be mass-produced quickly using a new laboratory technique developed by an international research team collaborating with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the National Institutes of Health. The new technique could become an important tool for developing a cocktail of SARS-specific antibodies that might help protect people recently exposed to the SARS virus or at high risk of exposure. The technique could

CNRS and Inserm research scientists at the Institut Curie have shed new light on the function of huntingtin, the protein whose mutation underlies Huntington ’s disease. This neurodegenerative disease,like Alzheimer ’s or Parkinson ’s,is characterized by the abnormal death of certain neurons.

The scientists have discovered that huntingtin,like a “booster rocket “,accelerates the transport of a neuron survival factor. When huntingtin is mutated, the “booster rocket ” malfunctions, transport

University of Toronto microbiologists have used pattern recognition software to discover the function of yeast genes essential to cell life – knowledge that could help scientists determine what causes cells to die, as well as what they need to live.

“Given the similarities between the yeast and human genomes, our work should promote advances in genomics research in both yeast and humans,” said Professor Timothy Hughes of U of T’s Department of Medical Genetics and Microbiology, who led the

Modern optical microscopes are high-tech devices with complex functions and operations. So that not just specialists can get the best out of these advanced instruments, Leica have produced a microscope which automatically selects the optimal combination of optical components.

Many modern items of equipment can do too much. It is not only when operating a video recorder or a mobile phone that you can quickly end up in the depths of some menu full of unclear functions. New features are overlo

Current microarray experiments allow the levels of activity of thousands of genes to be measured at once, providing a window into molecular events underlying health and disease. The selection of genes having distinct levels of activity between conditions of interest (such as cancer and non-cancer) has therefore emerged as a key aim of data analysis. However, with typically many thousands of genes to choose from and at most a few dozen sets of measurements available, differential analyses of this kind