Researchers have developed a novel method for reconstructing past ocean chemistry using calcium carbonate veins that precipitate from seawater-derived fluids in rocks beneath the seafloor. The new method will help scientists analyze past changes in climate, plate tectonics and evolution of life in the oceans. The research is detailed in a paper published online in Science.

"These processes affect ocean chemistry and have shaped our planet over millions of years," said Dr Rosalind Coggon, a professor Imperial College London.

Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered that common but hard-to-see sugar switches play an important role in cell division. Because these previously unrecognized sugar switches are so abundant and potential targets of manipulation by drugs, the discovery of their role has implications for new treatments for a number of diseases, including cancer, the scientists say.

Conventional wisdom says that children who are especially sensitive to stress are more vulnerable to adversity and have more behavior and health problems than their peers. But a new study in the journal Child Development suggests that highly sensitive children are also more likely to do well when they're raised in supportive environments.

The researchers looked at 338 kindergarteners, as well as their teachers and families, to determine how family adversity and biological reactivity contribute to healthy development.

Using transcriptional profiling, researchers at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University have uncovered previously unknown gene expression patterns in malaria. The discovery could lead to the development of more potent drugs or a vaccine for malaria, which is transmitted to humans by infected mosquitoes and kills up to three million people each year.

Transcriptional profiling is the measurement of the activity of thousands of genes at once, to create a global picture of cellular function. These profiles can, for example, distinguish between cells that are actively dividing, or show how the cells react to a particular treatment.

Other people have an accent, but not me. And this is not just because I have no accent. I wouldn’t have an accent even if I had one!

Accent is a strange thing (as is my reasoning style). No matter the accent you get stuck with – southern, New Yorker, or my valley girl rendition – you feel as if it is the other accents that sound accented to you. Your own accent sounds, well, unaccented, like vanilla, corn flakes, or white bread. Arguments about which person “has an accent” don’t tend to be productive; just a lot of pointing and reiterating the pearl, “No, you’re the one with the accent.”

The trial over gene patents, Association for Molecular Pathology, et al. v. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, et al., is beginning. Discover summarizes the case:

When Lisbeth Ceriani, a 43-year-old Massachusetts woman, was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, her doctors recommended that she undergo genetic testing to see if she carried mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes that increase risk of breast and ovarian cancers...

Bacteria that infect chronic wounds can be deadly to maggot 'biosurgeons' used to treat the lesions, say researchers writing in the journal Microbiology. During the study, maggots applied to simulated wounds heavily infected with the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa, were unable to treat the wound and were left dead after 20 hours. The findings could lead to more effective treatment of wounds and the development of novel antibiotics.

For the first time, a team of astronomers has completed a demographic census of galaxy types at two different points in the Universe's history — in effect, creating two Hubble sequences — that help explain how galaxies form. The survey of 116 local galaxies and 148 distant galaxies indicates that the Hubble sequence six billion years ago was very different from the one that astronomers see today.

Researchers from Case Western Reserve University have designed an ultra-lightweight sponge made of clay and a bit of high-grade plastic they say will effectively clean up spills of all kinds of oils and solvents, and allow for the absorbed oil to be squeezed back out for use.

The new material, called aerogel, is made by mixing clay with a polymer and water in a blender. The mixture is then freeze-dried; air fills the gaps left by the loss of water, and the resulting material is super light, comprised of about 96 percent air, 2 percent polymer and 2 percent clay.

Researchers from Yale and George Mason Universities say that, despite a lack of concern over climate change, the American public is in favor of policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and developing cleaner forms of energy.