Life Sciences and Chemistry

Scientists have discovered that seaweeds defend themselves from specific pathogens with naturally occurring antibiotics. The finding helps explain why some seaweeds, sponges and corals appear to avoid most infections by fungi and bacteria, according to a study published May 19 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Seaweeds live in constant contact with potentially dangerous microbes, and they have apparently evolved a chemical defense to help resist disease,” said lead author

Protein could be used as a treatment for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s disease

A team of researchers from Imperial College London, the Charing Cross Hospital and University College London have identified a protein which could be used to protect against neuro-degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, motor neurone diseases and the damage caused by strokes.

According to research published today in The Journal of Biologi

Research from a team at the Swiss Ornithological Institute, to be published in a forthcoming Proceedings B, a learned journal published by the Royal Society, reveals complex effects of global warming on migratory habits of birds. These effects may constitute a serious threat to some species – in particular those with longer migratory flights.

Over the past two decades spring temperatures in temperate regions have increased. This effect, due to global warming, has advanced the start of the r

Early evolution of life as we know it may have depended on DNA’s ability to absorb UV light. This insight into the early moments of life on Earth comes from research published today in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.

The research fills in one of the major gaps in our understanding about the origins of life: how single molecules were able to join together to create the self-replicating long chain molecules of RNA, the precursors of DNA. It “sheds new light on the earliest steps of evo

Genes come in pairs, one copy from your mom and one from your dad. In some genetic conditions, inheriting one bad, or mutant, gene copy from either parent is sufficient to cause disease. University of Iowa researchers have shown that it is possible to silence a mutant gene without affecting expression of the normal gene.

The findings suggest that the gene-silencing technique might one day be useful in treating many human diseases, including cancer, Huntington’s disease and similar genetic

Human beings may have made their first journey out of Africa as recently as 70,000 years ago, according to a new study by geneticists from Stanford University and the Russian Academy of Sciences. Writing in the American Journal of Human Genetics, the researchers estimate that the entire population of ancestral humans at the time of the African expansion consisted of only about 2,000 individuals.

“This estimate does not preclude the presence of other populations of Homo sapiens sapiens [mode