Category Archives: News & Archives

Newly discovered gut virus lives in half the world’s population

Odds are, there's a virus living inside your gut that has gone undetected by scientists for decades. A new study led by researchers at San Diego State University has found that more than half the world's population is host to a newly described virus, named crAssphage, which infects one of the most common types of…

Biologist warn of early stages of Earth’s sixth mass extinction event

The planet's current biodiversity, the product of 3.5 billion years of evolutionary trial and error, is the highest in the history of life. But it may be reaching a tipping point. In a new review of scientific literature and analysis of data published in Science, an international team of scientists cautions that the loss and…

People Use Just 8.2% of Their DNA, Study Finds

More than a decade has passed since the completion of the Human Genome Project, the international collaboration to map all of the "letters" in our DNA. The huge effort led to revolutionary genomic discoveries, but more than 10 years later, it's still unclear what percentage of the human genome is actually doing something important.…

Earth-like soils on Mars? Ancient fossilized soils potentially found deep inside impact crater suggest microbial life

Soil deep in a crater dating to some 3.7 billion years ago contains evidence that Mars was once much warmer and wetter, says University of Oregon geologist Gregory Retallack, based on images and data captured by the rover Curiosity. NASA rovers have shown Martian landscapes littered with loose rocks from impacts or layered by…

Genome-wide analysis reveals genetic similarities among friends: Study finds truth to ‘friends are the family you choose’

If you consider your friends family, you may be on to something. A study from the University of California, San Diego, and Yale University finds that friends who are not biologically related still resemble each other genetically. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study is coauthored by James Fowler, professor…

Cancer ‘as old as multi-cellular life on Earth’: Researchers discover a primordial cancer in a primitive animal

Every year millions of people around the world are diagnosed with cancer. Each one of them dreams of a victory in the battle against it. But can cancer ever be completely defeated? Researchers at Kiel University (CAU) in Germany have now reached a sobering conclusion: "cancer is as old as multi-cellular life on earth…

Strict diet suspends development, doubles lifespan of worms

The centuries-long search for the fountain of youth has yielded only a few promising leads, one of which entails an extreme, emaciating diet. A new study of the tiny nematode worm C. elegans begins to explain this marvel of calorie restriction and hints at an easier way to achieve longevity. Researchers at Duke University found that…

Salamanders Give Clues to How We Might Regrow Human Limbs

Humans have some regenerative abilities but compared to creatures like the salamander, which has an amazing ability to regenerate after injury, we’re pretty limited. Not only are salamanders the only adult vertebrates able to regrow full limbs, they’re able to regenerate an impressive repertoire of complex structures including parts of their hearts, eyes, spinal cord and…

Century-old drug reverses signs of autism in mice

A single dose of a century-old drug has eliminated autism symptoms in adult mice with an experimental form of the disorder. Originally developed to treat African sleeping sickness, the compound, called suramin, quells a heightened stress response in neurons that researchers believe may underlie some traits of autism. The finding raises the hope that some…

Gene ‘switch’ reverses cancer in common childhood leukemia

Melbourne researchers have shown a type of leukemia can be successfully 'reversed' by coaxing the cancer cells back into normal development. The discovery was made using a model of B-progenitor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL), the most common cancer affecting children. Researchers from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute showed that switching off a gene called Pax5 could…