Grape vineyards experimenting with sustainable pest management systems are seeing an unexpected benefit: an increase in butterflies. This method of conservation is easier in Washington, since vineyards in this state already face fewer pests and use fewer chemicals than vineyards in states like California.

"We're fortunate here to have the perfect place to be able to have this sustainable option," said  David James, an associate professor in Washington State University's Department of Entomology.

Scientists have discovered that mutations in the gene DRAM2 cause a new type of late-onset inherited blindness. 

The article describes individuals from five families with a variety of DRAM2 mutations, all of which lead to loss of central vision beginning at age 30-40. Peripheral vision loss is also described in older individuals. The light-sensing rear surface of the eye (the retina) relays visual information to the brain. It's a complex layered structure, with each layer of cells carrying out clearly defined functions. 

A new paper demonstrates how XML markup using GoldenGATE can address the challenges presented by unstructured legacy data, like those presented in the widely used PDF format. 

The paper demonstrates how structured primary biodiversity data can be extracted from such legacy sources and aggregated with and jointly queried with data from other Darwin Core-compatible sources, to present a visualization of these data that can communicate key information contained in biodiversity literature.

We may think that not wanting to live around relatives is a modern trait, but our closest anthropological relatives, modern day hunter-gatherers, choose to not live among family members as much as we think. That goes for when males and females have the choice.

Researchers have discovered that a brain protein plays a key role in controlling binge drinking, defined as drinking to the point of intoxication. They found that deleting the gene for this protein in mice ramped up alcohol consumption and prevented the brain from signaling the rewarding properties of alcohol. 

The goal of the new study was to identify the role of a member of the "G protein-gated inwardly rectifying potassium channel" (GIRK) family in the behavioral and cellular responses to alcohol.

Sometimes one food fallacy can conflict with another, and so you must choose - if you like paying over 240 percent more for a gluten-free label and 200 percent more for a probiotics label, you may have to pick between them.