Indoor and outdoor pollutants can rapidly harm the heart in ways different than outdoor air pollution alone, according to a new study presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2008.

The Cardiovascular Sub-study of the Detroit Exposure and Aerosol Research Study (DEARS) is the first study to show that two different aspects of exposure — community wide and personal — have differing adverse health outcomes on the heart and blood vessels.

Dishonesty may be more widespread in the animal kingdom than previously thought. A team of Australian ecologists has discovered that some male fiddler crabs “lie” about their fighting ability by growing claws that look strong and powerful but are in fact weak and puny.

Yes, the authors say, the study is the first direct evidence that crabs “bluff” about their fighting ability and they detail it in Functional Ecology.

A high proportion of people are not using condoms when they have sex with a new partner, according to a new study of heterosexual partnerships among British men and women - but it's not teenagers, it's people in their 30s, 40s and in partnerships where there is an age difference of five or more years.  Among those groups, condom use is particularly low.

The research, published online in the International Journal of Epidemiology today, looks at all heterosexual relationships experienced in the previous 12 months by 11,161 men and women interviewed for the second British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal 2). [1]

A third-year undergraduate student, Hayley Frend, at The University of Nottingham has had her research into the sex life of the pond snail published in the peer-reviewed journal Royal Society Journal Biology Letters. 

With a grant of £1,500 from the Nuffield Foundation, Frend, who is a student in the School of Biology,  has shown that just like humans the pond snail is genetically programmed to use the left or right handed side of its brain to perform different tasks. 

Canadian researchers have created a new protein patterning technique that's enabled them to reproduce complex cellular environments and a miniature version of a masterpiece painting. According to a new study published in the journal Lab on a Chip, scientists from Université de Montréal, the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital Research Centre, McGill University and the Montreal Neurological Institute have developed a laser technology that can mimic the protein patterns that surround cells in vivo and that could lead to great advances in neuroscience.

Researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, have discovered dental pulp stem cells can stimulate growth and generation of several types of neural cells. Findings from this study, available in the October issue of the journal Stem Cells, suggest dental pulp stem cells show promise for use in cell therapy and regenerative medicine, particularly therapies associated with the central nervous system.