Researchers have created a new approach that protects animal models against a type of genetic disruption that causes intellectual disability, including serious memory impairments and altered anxiety levels. 

The method focuses on treating the effects of mutations to a gene known as Syngap1. Damaging mutations in Syngap1 that reduce the number of functional proteins are one of the most common causes of sporadic intellectual disability and are associated with schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder.

Inflammation has long a target in Alzheimer's disease studies so a new finding in Neuron is counterintuitive. In the study, researchers hace uncovered the mechanism by which anti-inflammatory processes may trigger the disease and this anti-inflammatory process might actually trigger the build-up of sticky clumps of protein that form plaques in the brain. These plaques block brain cells' ability to communicate and are a well-known characteristic of the illness.

The finding suggests that Alzheimer's treatments might need to be tailored to patients depending on which forms of Apolipoprotein E, a major risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, these patients carry in their genes.

Climate science is right – but it isn't winning. NASA, CC BY

By Mathis Hampel, University of East Anglia

Scientists tell us the world is warming and that a climate catastrophe is imminent.

They’re probably right.

Yet climate change framed by scientists, politicians and economists as a straightforward pollution problem will neither convince skeptics nor advance the difficult decision-making process.

Bacteria communicate using chemical signals and now scientists have described a previously unknown communication pathway that appears to be widely distributed - and even leads to pathogens.

The investigation of bacterial communication is valuable because those pathways are a possible therapeutic target for new medicines. If the relevant communication options are prevented, the bacteria cannot develop their pathogenic properties.

Jupiter's moons are giving us a show not seen since 2013: The orbital path of the moons is tilting edge-ion to the Earth and the sun, making it possible to watch the moons pass in front of each other, an occultation, or pass through another moon's shadow, an eclipse, and even cast tiny black shadows onto Jupiter.

A new device developed by ROX Medical and named the 'Coupler' is a paper clip-sized implant which is inserted between the artery and vein in the upper thigh that has been shown to significantly lower blood pressure among patients with uncontrolled high blood pressure, compared to those treated with usual drug measures.

 It can be inserted in a procedure lasting around 40 minutes under local anesthetic.  

Heart function and blood pressure in mice exposed to bisphenol A (BPA) from birth though young adulthood are affected differently in males and females, with females at greater risk of damage from stress, a study from a University of Cincinnati (UC) researcher has found.

A research team led by Scott Belcher, PhD, professor of pharmacology and cell biophysics, Robin Gear, principal research assistant, and Eric Kendig, PhD, former UC postdoctoral fellow, found that in young BPA exposed female mice, the heart is more sensitive to stress-induced ischemic damage in a way not observed in untreated female mice.

Common wisdom and prior economic research suggest that an inventor filing a patent would want to keep the technical know-how secret as long as possible. But a new study of nearly 2 million patents in the United States shows that inventors are not as concerned with secrecy as previously thought. Researchers found that since 2000, most inventors when given the choice opted to disclose information about their patents before patent approval - even small inventors - and this disclosure correlates with more valuable patents.

Put innovative farming techniques in the right hands. CGIAR Climate, CC BY-NC-SA

By Sayed Azam-Ali, University of Nottingham

Africa will be able to feed itself in the next 15 years.

That’s one of the big “bets on the future” that Bill and Melinda Gates have made in their foundation’s latest annual letter. Helped by other breakthroughs in health, mobile banking and education, they argue that the lives of people in poor countries “will improve faster in the next 15 years than at any other time in history”.

As dairy farmers across Europe anxiously await the lifting of EU milk quotas in April this year, new research from the University of Bristol, UK has revealed the antiquity of dairy farming in a region famous for its dairy exports: Ireland.

Research published today in the Journal of Environmental Archaeology shows that dairying on the island goes back approximately 6,000 years, revealed through traces of ancient dairy fats found in pots dating to around 4,000 to 2,500 BC.