UK astronomers Elizabeth Stanway, Andrew Bunker and Richard McMahon at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, England, have used three of the most powerful telescopes in existence to identify some of the farthest galaxies yet seen. But at the same time, they have encountered a cosmic conundrum: it looks as if there were fewer galaxies forming stars at this early stage in the history of the Universe than in the more recent past. Their results, which will be published in the Monthly Notic

Genetically altered bacterial viruses appear to be more effective than naked DNA in eliciting an immune response and could be a new strategy for a next generation of vaccines that are easy to produce and store, say researchers from Moredun Research Institute in the United Kingdom.

“In theory, millions of doses can be grown within a matter of days using simple equipment, media and procedures,” says John March, one of lead researchers presenting findings at the American Society for Microbiol

Fndings in mice hold implications for human disorders

New research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill offers an important contribution to a new wave of thinking in genetics: the idea that not all human disease states are due to alterations in DNA sequence.

A growing body of research on these “epigenetic” changes are leading geneticists to rethink the conventional view that all human disease is fundamentally tied to DNA sequence variation (changes in the actua

Children’s viewing of violent TV shows, their identification with aggressive same-sex TV characters, and their perceptions that TV violence is realistic are all linked to later aggression as young adults, for both males and females. That is the conclusion of a 15-year longitudinal study of 329 youth published in the March issue of Developmental Psychology, a journal of the American Psychological Association (APA). These findings hold true for any child from any family, regardless of the child’s init

Viral enzyme ’clear cuts’ forest of protective molecules on lung cells in mice; blocking that enzyme reduces illness and incidence of death from subsequent infection by Streptococcus pneumoniae

Investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have shown in mice how the potentially deadly cooperation between influenza virus and bacterial pneumonia infections can be foiled, even if treatment is delayed and flu virus levels in the lung have peaked.

The St.

A Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory astrophysicist, working with an international group of researchers, has discovered that high-energy neutrinos — particles that rarely interact with other matter — are produced in the accretion discs of neutron stars in amounts significant enough to be detected by the next-generation of neutrino telescopes.

Using computer simulations, the team of scientists, which includes Lab astrophysicist Diego Torres, has shown that magnetized, accreting neutron