When patients develop acute liver failure, severe complications arise rapidly after the first signs of liver disease, and patients' health can deteriorate rapidly. New research published in the American Journal of Transplantation indicates that emergency evaluations of living liver donors can be conducted safely to allow acute liver failure patients to undergo transplantation before their condition worsens.

Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and their international collaborators have developed a novel fluorescence microscopy technique that for the first time shows where and when proteins are produced. The technique allows researchers to directly observe individual messenger RNA molecules (mRNAs) as they are translated into proteins in living cells.

The technique, carried out in living human cells and fruit flies, should help reveal how irregularities in protein synthesis contribute to developmental abnormalities and human disease processes including those involved in Alzheimer's disease and other memory-related disorders.

A means by which the removal of carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal-fired power plants might one day be done far more efficiently and at far lower costs than today has been discovered by a team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). By appending a diamine molecule to the sponge-like solid materials known as metal-organic-frameworks (MOFs), the researchers were able to more than triple the CO2-scrubbing capacity of the MOFs, while significantly reducing parasitic energy.

A medieval cesspit in the old city of Jerusalem has revealed the presence of a number of ancient parasite eggs, which gives researchers a glimpse into the nature and spread of infectious diseases in the Middle East during the 15th century. 

Scientists found evidence of six species of intestinal parasites in the 500-year-old latrine, which included large quantities of roundworm and whipworm, both spread by fecal contamination of food and probably endemic to the region dating back to human evolution out of Africa. Two of the parasites detected, Entamoeba dysentery and fish tapeworm, were common in northern Europe in the medieval period, but either very rare or almost completely absent among the populations of the medieval Middle East.

While looking for life on planets beyond our own solar system, a group of international scientists has created a colorful catalog containing reflection signatures of Earth life forms that might be found on planet surfaces throughout the cosmic hinterlands. The new database and research, published in the March 16 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, gives humans a better chance to learn if we are not alone.

Insulin has been in use since 1923 so why isn't it generic?

It is a corporate conspiracy, say government-funded academics. It is constantly being improved because so many people rely on it, which leads to a new patent, say companies.

Bans are all the rage in states like California and New York but the key question is whether or not they actually work; the entire developed world is facing an obesity crisis so if bans are the only thing that will prevent a strained health care system from collapsing, advocates for managing individual behavior say they should be used as needed.