Extended use of the common antibiotic azithromycin may prolong the time between hospitalizations for patients suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), according to a post-hoc analysis of a multicenter study which compared the hospitalization rates of patients treated with a 12-month course of azithromycin to the rates of those treated with placebo. 

Yesterday, a monster tornado almost 2-miles wide tore through Moore, Oklahoma, a suburb of Oklahoma City, wiping out entire blocks and killing 24 people. 

The National Weather Service upgraded its calculation of the storm's strength today, declaring it was a rare EF5, the most powerful ranking on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, and had winds exceeding 200 miles per hour and left a trail of destruction measuring about 17 miles long. Debris from the tornado fell as far as 100 miles away, reaching the city of Tulsa.

Proteins may be more of a factor in shaping regulatory patterns than environment, according to a new study that looks at how cells' protein networks relate to a bacteria's genome.

The lab of computer scientist Luay Nakhleh ar Rice University reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that when environmental factors are eliminated from an evolutionary model, mutations and genetic drift can give rise to the patterns that appear. They studied changes that show up in regulatory networks that determine the organism's characteristics.

A novel approach to obstructing the runaway inflammatory response implicated in some types of asthma has shown promise in a Phase IIa clinical trial, according to researchers.

The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial tested the efficacy and safety of the monoclonal antibody, dupilumab, in patients with "persistent, moderate-to-severe asthma" and elevated eosinophils, which are immune cells that mobilize in response to allergens and infections and are commonly seen in asthma.

Dupilumab, a fully human monoclonal antibody discovered by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and being developed by Regeneron and Sanofi, thwarts activation of the Th2 immune response implicated in asthma by blocking two cytokines, interleukin-4 and interleukin-13.

There are currently a number of research teams worldwide working towards the implementation of bionic heads and faces which can attempt to express human emotions, however “… most of them can not express continuous changing expressions effectively, and they just express limited pre-existing emotional state.” explain the developers of a new Chinese Bionic Head.

A new analysis shows that America could produce almost 9% of its annual energy needs -  25 billion gallons of fuel - using algae.

But it will take a lot of water.

Algae are plump with oil and various research teams and companies are pursuing ways to improve the creation of biofuels based on algae – growing algae composed of more oil, creating algae that live longer and thrive in cooler temperatures, or devising new ways to separate out the useful oil from the rest of the algae.

Are you among the 60% of UK television viewers who admit to a Television Tryst behind your partner's back?

A survey of Netflix customers found that the freedom to watch what we want, when we want can be a romantic minefield.  Netflix has 36 million members in 40 countries so the pool of people is obviously there.

Tiotropium delivered by the Respimat(R) Soft Mist(TM) Inhaler (SMI) increases time to first severe exacerbation and first episode of asthma worsening across a broad spectrum of patients who remain symptomatic despite at least inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) / long-acting beta2-agonists (LABA) therapy.

The results are from pre-planned subgroup analyses of data from the PrimoTinA-asthma(TM) Phase III studies being presented for the first time today at the 2013 American Thoracic Society (ATS) congress in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Decades of focus on genes may have led the scientific community away from a balanced exploration of the organisms that those genes define - whether they be plants, animals or microorganisms - and more toward gene-focused directions: inward, toward the world of cellular and molecular biology, and outward, toward the broad-scale evolutionary issues of population and quantitative genetics. We've become too genetic variation heavy.

Next month, the US and Europe would like to make some progress in tearing down trade barriers, an archaic notion left over from the Colonial period in history.(1)

Special trade agreements with blocs, like The Hanseatic League of the 12th century, were always common, but restrictions enjoyed a popularity boom after the collapse of the East India Trade Company in 1799 became the poster child for the perils of free trade - 18th century globalization hysteria.