Researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW), in collaboration with other colleagues of the Genetic Epidemiology of Lung Cancer Consortium (GELCC), have identified a gene that is associated with lung cancer.

The findings are published in American Journal of Human Genetics. Through whole exome sequencing, researchers identified a link between a mutation in PARK2, a gene associated with early-onset Parkinson's disease, and familial lung cancer.

The researchers sequenced the exomes (protein coding region of the genome) of individuals from a family with multiple cases of lung cancer. They then studied the PARK2 gene in additional families affected by lung cancer.

For chimpanzees, just like humans, teasing, taunting and bullying are familiar parts of playground politics. An analysis of 12 years of observations of playground fights between young chimpanzees in East Africa finds that chimps with higher-ranked moms are more likely to win.

The results come from an analysis of daily field notes recorded from 2000 to 2011 at Gombe National Park in western Tanzania. Stored in the Jane Goodall Institute Research Center at Duke University and also at The George Washington University, the records are part of a larger database containing more than 50 years of data on over 300 wild chimpanzees, going all the way back to Jane Goodall's first observations from the early 1960s.

It's always helpful to have text or verbal claims about where a video was taken, but when it comes to terrorists or other criminals, they might not be telling the truth. 

Researchers from Ramón Llull University in Spain have created a system capable of geolocating videos by comparing audiovisual content with a worldwide multimedia database and it is able to locate where the videos were taken with no indication of where they were produced.

Latching onto the probiotics diet fad, several studies have claimed that the gut microbiome, the diverse array of bacteria that live in the stomach and intestines, may be to blame for obesity. But Katherine Pollard, PhD, a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes, says it is not that simple.

The Great Lakes have been invaded by more non-native species than any other freshwater ecosystem in the world, and though there have been increasing efforts to stem the tide of invasion threats, they remain vulnerable.

Over the past two centuries, more than 180 non-native species have been recorded in the Great Lakes and the rivers that flow into them. Nearly 20% of these species are considered to be harmful ecologically and economically, posing threats to the Lakes' native biodiversity and multibillion dollar fishery. New threats are emerging because of risks associated with trade in live organisms and climate change,researchers caution in a study in the Journal of Great Lakes Research.

A team of scientists has created a "conjugate" molecule -- one stitched together from two separate molecules -- that seeks out and blocks prostate cancer growth in lab animals.

The molecule NMI combines a near-infrared dye that targets cancer cells and a MAO-A inhibitor often used in antidepressants but recently shown to be effective at reducing or even eliminating prostate tumor growth in mice.

Near-infrared dye targets tumors in a mouse. Credit: Jean Shih / USC