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Scientists have genetically engineered a dozen cows to be free from the proteins that cause mad cow disease, a breakthrough that may make the animals immune to the brain-wasting disease. Read more…

The typical pat on the back and soothing words are not the best tonic. Instead, a proactive approach should treat homesickness much like any disease. Read more…

A new report by scientists studying Louisiana's sinking coast says the land here is not just sinking, it's sliding ever so slowly into the Gulf of Mexico. Read more…

A new study suggests why Brad Pitt's chiseled jaw makes women weak in the knees, at least for a while. Read more…

Children and adolescents who are obese or overweight have higher health care utilization and a significantly higher average of health care charges than their healthy-weight peers, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Read more…

A new study of a large U.S. National Cancer Institute database provides the strongest evidence yet that a key portion of the traditional dose-response model used in drug testing and risk assessment for toxins is wrong when it comes to measuring the effects of very low doses, says Edward J. Calabrese, a scientist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The findings, based on a review of more than 56,000 tests in 13 strains of yeast using 2,200 drugs, are published in the journal Toxicological Sciences and offer strong backing for the theory of hormesis, Calabrese and his colleagues contend. Read more…

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Dutch research institute TNO Quality of Life and Wageningen University, the Netherlands, found that, among hypertensive men, moderate alcohol consumption was associated with a decreased risk of fatal and non-fatal heart attack. Read more…

An Auburn University veterinary professor in collaboration with researchers at Vaxin Inc. of Birmingham, Ala., has developed the first "in ovo," or egg-injected, vaccine to protect chickens against avian influenza, a virus threatening human health and global poultry populations. Read more…

A drug used to treat epilepsy has been found to significantly improve tremors, motor fluctuations and other involuntary movements, or dyskinesias, in patients with Parkinson disease, according to a study published in the Jan. 2, 2007, issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Read more…

A team of researchers has found that nocturnal lemurs thought to belong to different species because of their strikingly different coat colors are not only genetically alike, but belong to the same species. The team, which includes Laurie R. Godfrey, professor of anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and UMass graduate student Emilienne Rasoazanabary, has just published its findings in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology. Read more…

People who were abused and neglected during childhood have a higher risk of major depression when they become young adults, according to a report in the January issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Read more…

In an advance in the emerging field of bacterial imaging, scientists are reporting development of a method for identifying specific sites of localized bacterial infections in living animals. Read more…

Drawing upon a massive database established with funds from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, one of the National Institutes of Health, scientists have completed the most comprehensive analysis to date of published influenza A virus epitopes -- the critical sites on the virus that are recognized by the immune system. The findings, reported by researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, are being published online this week by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Read more…

The internet could soon shift into overdrive thanks to a new generation of optical molecules developed and tested by a team of researchers from Washington State University, the University of Leuven in Belgium and the Chinese Academy of Science in China. Read more…

A higher level of symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder may increase the risk of coronary heart disease in older men, according to a report in the January issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Read more…

Using cooler water to wash shell eggs during a second washing can help cool them quicker. This reduces the potential of foodborne pathogen growth both inside the eggs and on the eggshell surface, according to scientists with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS). Read more…

A kind of 20/20 hindsight plagues thousands of parents a year, as they grieve the loss of children, teenagers or young adults who take their own lives, says Cheryl King, Ph.D., the director of the Youth Depression and Suicide Prevention Program at the University of Michigan Depression Center. A child psychologist and suicide researcher, King says the warning signs of suicidal thoughts in young people are often confused with the "normal" experiences of the teen years. But it is possible to learn to identify the signs of risk. Read more…

Today's computers have more than 2,000 times as much memory as the machines of yesteryear, yet programmers are still writing code as if memory is in short supply. Not only does this make programs crash annoyingly, but it also can make users vulnerable to hacker attacks, says computer scientist Emery Berger from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Read more…

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins and Yale university medical schools have found that a simple blood test to measure uric acid, a measure of kidney function, might reveal a risk factor for cognitive problems in old age. Of 96 community-dwelling adults aged 60 to 92 years, those with uric-acid levels at the high end of the normal range had the lowest scores on tests of mental processing speed, verbal memory and working memory. Read more…

With most cases of viral laryngitis occurring during the winter cold and flu season, a vocal health expert at the University of Michigan Health System is offering tips for preventing and treating the inflammation of the voice box. Read more…

Scientists have long thought that limiting the calories a person consumes can prevent, or at least slow the progression of certain cancers. But research at UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) using mice suggests that body composition -- whether a person is lean or obese -- actually is key to reducing cancer risks. Read more…

Airborne volatile compounds that attract plant-feeding insects to alfalfa could help growers control cotton pests with fewer pesticides. That's according to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) entomologists Jackie Blackmer and John Byers, at the agency's U.S. Arid-Land Agricultural Research Center in Maricopa, Ariz. Read more…

One of the hallmarks of British space policy for years has been its opposition to human spaceflight, preferring to devote its funding, including its contributions to ESA programs, to robotic Earth and space sciences missions. However, The Times of London reports that a major shift in policy may be in the works. Malcolm Wicks, the new science minister, told the newspaper that the time has come to rethink the government's stance on human spaceflight, saying that automatic opposition to such efforts is no longer warranted: I think sometimes our understandable reluctance to fund British men and women going into space has come across wrongly as us being a bit cool about space. I think we should be hot and enthusiastic. It?s going to be this millennium's great adventure. I'm not changing our position on this now, but I think it would be foolish to be dogmatic about these things. That's hardly an unqualified endorsement of human spaceflight, but given the UK's previous policy it at least opens the door to a bigger change down the road. Wicks met with Michael Griffin during a trip to London by the NASA administrator a month ago and opened the door to UK participation in the Vision for Space Exploration, although at the time that interest appeared to be focused on robotic missions, including the use of small satellites, where UK-based Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd is a world leader. The Times said that Wicks "has not ruled out including British astronauts as part of any deal" with NASA. The UK could also conceivably redirect some of the financial support it is providing to ESA's Aurora exploration program to parts of the effort that involve human spaceflight. Read more…

SPACE.com - Astronomers have spied a small black hole nestled in the middle of a packed star cluster, a region not typically thought to be very black hole-friendly. Read more…