A study published today describes a newly-discovered, heritable genetic cause of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), namely mutation of the gene ETV6. Much like mutation of the gene BRCA marks people at risk to develop breast and ovarian cancers, identification of mutations in the gene ETV6 may allow doctors to predict the development of ALL, allowing increased monitoring and in the future, perhaps strategies to prevent the disease. There are just over 30,000 cases of ALL diagnosed in the United States each year, with the majority of those cases being in children ages 2-5.

Writers, athletes and athletes can tell you that sometimes being too focused in a bad thing. You need to relax a little, especially if, as the old saying goes, being focused causes you to lose sight of the forest among all those trees.

Bioplastics are used in medical applications such as wound healing dressings, sutures, catheter tubes and drug delivery and bioplastics made from protein sources such as albumin and whey have shown significant antibacterial properties.

They could even be used for food packaging, according to a recent study by the University of Georgia College of Family and Consumer Sciences. 

A new paper concludes that there is limited evidence to show that xylitol prevents dental cavities in children and adults. Xylitol is a natural sweetener that is widely promoted globally, and can be found in wide range of everyday products including sugar-free chewing gum, toothpaste, gels, lozenges and sweets.

In the production of organic vegetables, nitrogen is important, yet can be quite costly to manage. Nitrogen management is even more challenging when production practices call for the use of polyethylene mulch combined with fertigation. The authors of a new study published in HortScience have found that hydrolyzed fish fertilizer holds promise as an "economically feasible" nitrogen source for growing organic vegetables.

What do butterflies, spiders and lobsters share in common?

Yawunik kootenayi, a marine creature with two pairs of eyes and prominent grasping appendages that lived 250 million years before the first dinosaur.

The fossil recently identified is the first new species to be described from the Marble Canyon site, part of the Canadian Burgess Shale fossil deposit.

Yawunik had evolved long frontal appendages that resemble the antennae of modern beetles or shrimps, though these appendages were composed of three long claws, two of which bore opposing rows of teeth that helped the animal catch its prey.