Researchers in Singapore and UK as part of the EpiGen consortium worked together with scientists at the Nestlé Research Center, Switzerland, on a new study on the bacterial makeup of the gut (gut microbiota) of infants in Singapore. Their study reveals that the rate of bacterial colonisation of the gut is influenced by external factors such as the method of delivery and duration of gestation. The study also found that infants with a mature gut bacteria profile at an early age had normal levels of body fat at the age of 18 months, while infants with less mature gut bacteria profiles tended to have lower levels of body fat at the age of 18 months, indicating that gut bacteria could be related to normal development and healthy weight gain.

By:
Leigh Cooper,  Inside Science

(Inside Science) – Despite their agility in flight, birds often find themselves unable to escape vehicles – a conundrum that puzzles scientists.

To solve the mystery, a new study brought brown-headed cowbirds (Molothrus ater) into a homemade, bird-sized movie theater where they watched videos of an approaching truck. The cowbirds eyeballed the gap between themselves and the car to evaluate the danger of the approaching vehicle, but they did not take into account how fast the truck closed that distance.

Cell cultures are good for broad biology and medical research, they can help eliminate a lot of broad concerns, but they are not a faithful mimic of real tissue. For the foreseeable future, though the public thinks animal testing is unnecessary, it really is.

A new study finds that laboratory-grown cells experience altered cell states within three days as they adapt to their new environment, and studies of human disease, including cancer, rely on the use of cell cultures that have often been grown for decades. 

Researchers have cracked a code that governs infections by a major group of viruses including the common cold and polio.

Until now, scientists had not noticed the code, which had been hidden in plain sight in the sequence of the ribonucleic acid (RNA) that makes up this type of viral genome.

But a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Early Edition by a group from the University of Leeds and University of York unlocks its meaning and demonstrates that jamming the code can disrupt virus assembly. Stopping a virus assembling can stop it functioning and therefore prevent disease.

The effectiveness of brain-training games depends on what outcome you're hoping to achieve. Shutterstock

By Jared Cooney Horvath, University of Melbourne

Over the last decade, an ever-growing number of brain-training programs claiming to enhance learning, memory and general well-being have been developed and marketed for use in the classroom. Unfortunately, despite many years of laboratory research and classroom scrutiny, the effect of these programs on real-world learning and health remains uncertain.

Researchers have cracked a code that governs infections by the common cold and polio viruses.

The code was known, it was 'hidden in plain sight' in the sequence of the ribonucleic acid (RNA) that makes up this type of viral genome but its meaning had not been unlocked. Now, researchers have found that jamming the code can disrupt virus assembly. Stopping a virus assembling can stop it functioning and therefore prevent disease. 

Single-stranded RNA viruses are the simplest type of virus and were probably one of the earliest to evolve. However, they are still among the most potent and damaging of infectious pathogens.

A new genus and species of flowering plants from the custard apple family, Annonaceae, has been discovered in the jungles of Gabon by French and Gabonese botanists. The extraordinary genus was named Sirdavidia, after David Attenborough to honor his influence on the life and careers of the scientists who discovered it.

But what is so special about this new discovery? The new genus was in fact erected to accommodate an unusual new species, found in Monts de Cristal National Park, Gabon during an expedition focusing on the study of Magnoliidae floral diversity in rain forests, to which the Annonaceae family belongs.

By inserting a specific strain of bacteria into the microenvironment of aggressive ovarian cancer, researchers transformed the behavior of tumor cells from suppression to immunostimulation - they attack themselves.

Tumors protect themselves from attack by the immune system by generating an immunosuppressive microenvironment.  By introducing an attenuated and safe form of the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes (Lm), created by Aduro Biotech Inc., they found that the attenuated bacteria is taken up by the immunosuppressive cells and transforms them from cells that protect the tumor into cells that attack the tumor 

The world's urban areas have experienced significant increases in heat waves over the past 40 years, according to new research published today.

These prolonged periods of extreme hot days have significantly increased in over 200 urban areas across the globe between 1973 and 2012, and have been most prominent in the most recent years on record.

The results, which have been published today, 30 January, in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters, show that over the same time period, more than half of the studied areas showed a significant increase in the number of individual extreme hot days, whilst almost two-thirds showed significant increases in the number of individual extreme hot nights.

No one likes to think of hospital patients like a factory assembly line but with more and more people competing for the same number of doctors, a lot of the patients entering the doors don't need "House" or to be tested for everything due to defensive medicine lawsuit defense policies.

Waiting times in hospital emergency departments could be cut with the introduction of Lean Management and Six Sigma techniques according to new research. Lean Management involves never ending efforts to eliminate or reduce 'waste' while Six Sigma is a disciplined, data-driven method for eliminating defects in any process. These methods were developed in manufacturing contexts. The two methods can be combined and referred to as Lean Six Sigma (LSS).