New study backs up observations in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients showing reduced effectiveness of symptom-reliever medication (β2-adrenoceptor agonists) in flare-ups linked to cigarette smoking and infection with viruses such as influenza.

Research suggests a need for new drugs to treat COPD patients in these categories and a model that could be used to test new medications.

According to the study, which is published in the Portland Press journal Clinical Science, the effectiveness of the commonly used COPD symptom-reliever medication salbutamol is reduced on exposure to cigarette smoke and influenza A infection in an animal model of the respiratory disease.

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA - The Zika virus may be associated with an autoimmune disorder that attacks the brain's myelin similar to multiple sclerosis, according to a small study that is being released today and will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 68th Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada, April 15 to 21, 2016.

"Though our study is small, it may provide evidence that in this case the virus has different effects on the brain than those identified in current studies," said study author Maria Lucia Brito Ferreira, MD, with Restoration Hospital in Recife, Brazil. "Much more research will need to be done to explore whether there is a causal link between Zika and these brain problems."

A new study suggests that Neanderthals across Europe may well have been infected with diseases carried out of Africa by waves of anatomically modern humans, or Homo sapiens. As both were species of hominin, it would have been easier for pathogens to jump populations, say researchers. This might have contributed to the demise of Neanderthals.

Researchers from the universities of Cambridge and Oxford Brookes have reviewed the latest evidence gleaned from pathogen genomes and DNA from ancient bones, and concluded that some infectious diseases are likely to be many thousands of years older than previously believed.

New research led by Professor Cathie Martin of the John Innes Centre has revealed how a plant used in traditional Chinese medicine produces compounds which may help to treat cancer and liver diseases.

The Chinese skullcap, Scutellaria baicalensis - otherwise known in Chinese medicine as Huang-Qin - is traditionally used as a treatment for fever, liver and lung complaints.

Rewards act as external factors that influence and reinforce learning processes. Researchers from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin have now been able to show that the brain can produce its own learning signals in cases where no such external feedback is available. A report on the mechanisms underlying these self-generated feedback signals has been published in the current volume of eLife*, and shows clear parallels between the neurobiological processes involved in learning based on external and self-generated feedback.

Well-trained cadaver dogs can be remarkably adept at discerning the smell of human remains from those of animals. Mimicking these canines' abilities in an artificial nose would be a huge help in disasters when thousands of people go missing. So scientists are trying to figure out what precise odors distinguish a human corpse from an animal one, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society.