While studying the mechanisms of development in shark embryos, University of Florida scientists identified genetic activity that is required for digit development in limbed animals.

Previous work suggested that the transition from fins to limbs involved the addition of a late phase of gene activity during embryonic development, something thought to be absent during the development of fish fins.

The finding shows what was thought to be a relatively recent evolutionary innovation existed eons earlier than previously believed, shedding light on how life on Earth developed and potentially providing insight for scientists seeking ways to cure human birth defects, which affect about 150,000 infants annually in the United States.

It will soon be easy to determine whether a person has an alcohol problem. With a tiny prick of the finger a new method can detect any abuse from the last two weeks. It can also reveal injurious and risky consumption, such as repeated weekend binges. The method is quicker, cheaper, and more accurate than present variants, which makes it interesting to primary care clinics, workplaces, and other venues where it is important to carry out health checks.

"People with incipient alcohol abuse often try to obscure their problems, both from themselves and from others. This makes it important to uncover problems in time.

Physiologists estimate that humans have 300 million alveoli in their lungs to get rid of just one kilogram of carbon dioxide per day. At rest, they barely exchange ten liters of breathing air each minute. Macrophages are constantly lurking for dust particles or rests of small haemorrhages which immediately have to be eliminated.

It is this reliability, developed by the respiratory system in the evolution process, that inspires Hans Fahlenkamp, professor for chemical engineering at Universität Dortmund. He thinks it is the answer to the biggest challenge in environmental technology; the carbon dioxide separation from power plant flue gas.

It may not seem intuitive that virtual reality can impact the real world environment but it's been shown to have a great deal of leverage in the UK, namely as a principal mechanism for stimulating support for wind farms.

SEE3D, part of the University of Wales, has worked with renewable energy company West Coast Energy to develop visualization software that will help fast track wind farm planning approvals.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found that brains of people with clinical depression react very differently than those of healthy people when trying to cope with negative situations.

According to the World Health Organization, clinical depression is one of the leading causes of disability and lost productivity in the world. Understanding the root cause of depression, however, has proved difficult.

"It's normal for people to have negative emotions in certain circumstances," says lead study author Tom Johnstone. "One of the features of major depression is not that people have negative reactions to negative situations, it's that they can't pull themselves out of those negative emotional moods.

Metforin, the most commonly prescribed diabetes drug, kills tumor cells that lack key regulatory gene p53, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicinr.

More than half of all human cancers have lost the p53 gene. Yet even in an era of molecularly targeted therapies scientists have had trouble figuring out how to compensate for the absence of a gene. Unlike a genetic mutation that changes the function or activity of a gene, which can be inhibited by a well-tailored drug, loss of a gene leaves nothing for the drug to target.

“This is the first time you can show that tumor growth is impaired by a diabetes drug,” says senior author Craig B.