


A powerful antiviral protein may act as a checkpoint for keeping or ending a pregnancy.

When exposed to Zika virus before birth, mouse fetuses with the protein commit cell suicide, while fetuses without it continued to develop. The result, published January 5 in Science Immunology, suggests that the protein, a receptor involved in immune cell signaling, plays a role in spontaneous abortions and other human pregnancy complications.



An old drug supercharged by University of Queensland researchers has emerged as a new antibiotic that could destroy some of the world's most dangerous superbugs.

The supercharge technique , led by Dr Mark Blaskovich and Professor Matt Cooper from UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), potentially could revitalise other antibiotics.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria - superbugs - cause 700,000 deaths worldwide each year, and a UK government review has predicted this could rise to 10 million by 2050.

Engineers at Rice University's Nanotechnology Enabled Water Treatment (NEWT) Center have found a catalyst that cleans toxic nitrates from drinking water by converting them into air and water.


Boulder, Colo., USA: In Oklahoma, reducing the amount of saltwater (highly brackish water produced during oil and gas recovery) pumped into the ground seems to be decreasing the number of small fluid-triggered earthquakes. But a new study shows why it wasn't enough to ease bigger earthquakes. The study, led by Ryan M. Pollyea of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, was published online ahead of print in Geology this week.

Recent advances in brain imaging have enabled scientists to show for the first time that a key protein which causes nerve cell death spreads throughout the brain in Alzheimer's disease - and hence that blocking its spread may prevent the disease from taking hold.

In order to survive in a changing environment, animals and humans must integrate sensory information and their experience to select the most appropriate behavior for a given situation. This process is ultimately constrained by the range of possible motor outputs they can produce.

ATLANTA -January 4, 2018-The cancer death rate dropped 1.7% from 2014 to 2015, continuing a drop that began in 1991 and has reached 26%, resulting in nearly 2.4 million fewer cancer deaths during that time.

The data is reported in Cancer Statistics 2018, the American Cancer Society's comprehensive annual report on cancer incidence, mortality, and survival. It is published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians and is accompanied by its consumer version: Cancer Facts and Figures 2018.