New study backs up observations in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients showing reduced effectiveness of symptom-reliever medication (β2-adrenoceptor agonists) in flare-ups linked to cigarette smoking and infection with viruses such as influenza.

Research suggests a need for new drugs to treat COPD patients in these categories and a model that could be used to test new medications.

According to the study, which is published in the Portland Press journal Clinical Science, the effectiveness of the commonly used COPD symptom-reliever medication salbutamol is reduced on exposure to cigarette smoke and influenza A infection in an animal model of the respiratory disease.

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA - The Zika virus may be associated with an autoimmune disorder that attacks the brain's myelin similar to multiple sclerosis, according to a small study that is being released today and will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 68th Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada, April 15 to 21, 2016.

"Though our study is small, it may provide evidence that in this case the virus has different effects on the brain than those identified in current studies," said study author Maria Lucia Brito Ferreira, MD, with Restoration Hospital in Recife, Brazil. "Much more research will need to be done to explore whether there is a causal link between Zika and these brain problems."

A new study suggests that Neanderthals across Europe may well have been infected with diseases carried out of Africa by waves of anatomically modern humans, or Homo sapiens. As both were species of hominin, it would have been easier for pathogens to jump populations, say researchers. This might have contributed to the demise of Neanderthals.

Researchers from the universities of Cambridge and Oxford Brookes have reviewed the latest evidence gleaned from pathogen genomes and DNA from ancient bones, and concluded that some infectious diseases are likely to be many thousands of years older than previously believed.

New research led by Professor Cathie Martin of the John Innes Centre has revealed how a plant used in traditional Chinese medicine produces compounds which may help to treat cancer and liver diseases.

The Chinese skullcap, Scutellaria baicalensis - otherwise known in Chinese medicine as Huang-Qin - is traditionally used as a treatment for fever, liver and lung complaints.

Are you keen on humans in space, but skeptical about colonization of Mars as our first objective for space exploration? Do you think we will start with settlements supported from Earth, such as we already have in inhospitable places such as Antarctica? Do you think our exploration should be open ended with science as a core objective, and planetary protection and reversible biological exploration as core principles?

Rewards act as external factors that influence and reinforce learning processes. Researchers from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin have now been able to show that the brain can produce its own learning signals in cases where no such external feedback is available. A report on the mechanisms underlying these self-generated feedback signals has been published in the current volume of eLife*, and shows clear parallels between the neurobiological processes involved in learning based on external and self-generated feedback.

Well-trained cadaver dogs can be remarkably adept at discerning the smell of human remains from those of animals. Mimicking these canines' abilities in an artificial nose would be a huge help in disasters when thousands of people go missing. So scientists are trying to figure out what precise odors distinguish a human corpse from an animal one, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society.

Washington, DC - April 6, 2016 - Vibrio parahaemolyticus caused an outbreak of food poisoning in Maryland in 2010. The pathogen strain sequenced from patients proved to be the same strain as one of those found in raw oysters from local restaurants, strong evidence that the oysters were the source of the illness. That particular strain of V. parahaemolyticus was not local, but was traced to Asia. The research is published March 18 in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

When large-scale economic struggles hit a region, a country, or even a continent, the explanations tend to be big in nature as well.

Macroeconomists -- who study large economic phenomena -- often look for sweeping explanations of what has gone wrong, such as declines in productivity, consumer demand, or investor confidence, or significant changes in monetary policy.

But what if large-scale economic slumps can be traced to declines in relatively narrow industrial sectors? A newly published study co-authored by an MIT economist provides evidence that economic problems may often have smaller points of origin and then spread as part of a network effect.

Scientists at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital at McGill University have made an important discovery about the human auditory system and how to study it, findings that could lead to better testing and diagnosis of hearing-related disorders.

The researchers detected frequency-following responses (FFR) coming from a part of the brain not previously known to emit them. FFRs are neural signals generated in the brain when people hear sounds.