Researchers have discovered how Golden orb web spiders (Nephila antipodiana) add a chemical to their web silk to repel invading ants, which means spider silk is even more awesome than it was before; it was already strong, elastic and adhesive, and now it can improve pesticide design.

Researchers have pinpointed the cancer-fighting potential in the bat plant, or Tacca chantrieri.

Susan Mooberry, Ph.D., leader of the Experimental Development Therapeutics Program at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, has been working to isolate substances in the plant in hopes of finding a new plant-derived cancer drug with the potential of Taxol. Taxol, the first microtubule stabilizer derived from the Yew family, has been an effective chemotherapy drug, but patients eventually develop problems with resistance over time and toxicity at higher doses. Researchers have long been seeking alternatives.

Nearly anything can be rationalized if the value is subscribed to an intangible like 'good will.' The Olympic Games are big business and generate substantial amounts of revenue for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) through lucrative television contracts and corporate sponsorship - yet they lose money for the hosts.

Sex helps in multiple ways, it seems.  New research presented at The Gerontological Society of America's meeting, based on 2004 General Social Surveys, found that the more often older married individuals engage in sexual activity, the more likely they are to be happy with their lives and marriages.

Based on the survey responses of 238 married individuals age 65 years or older, the research showed that frequency of sexual activity was a significant predictor of both general and marital happiness. The association even remained after accounting for factors such as age, gender, health status, and satisfaction with financial situation.

Researchers have developed what they are billing as the world’s lightest material. With a density of 0.9 mg/cc, it is about one hundred times lighter than Styrofoam™. 

The new material redefines the limits of lightweight materials because of its unique “micro-lattice” cellular architecture, they say - consists of 99.99 percent air by designing the 0.01 percent solid at the nanometer, micron and millimeter scales.  The material’s architecture allows unprecedented mechanical behavior for a metal, including complete recovery from compression exceeding 50 percent strain and extraordinarily high energy absorption.

The development of simple tests to predict a leukemic relapse in young patients has come a step closer. Approximately 20 percent of young leukemia patients who are treated with stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood will experience leukemic relapse but new research findings published in Blood demonstrate that the blame falls partially on T cells, a subset of white blood cells. 

The researchers analyzed blood samples from young children who received an umbilical cord blood transplant for the treatment of blood disorders, including leukemia. They were particularly interested in studying the three to six month time period post-transplantation, when the children were most susceptible to both relapse and infection.