A new study by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests that a specialized area of the mosquito brain mixes tastes with smells to create unique and preferred flavors. The findings advance the possibility, they say, of identifying a substance that makes “human flavor” repulsive to the malaria-bearing species of the mosquitoes, so instead of feasting on us, they keep the disease to…
Monkeys infected with Zika virus are protected from future infection, and pregnancy dramatically prolongs infection in monkeys, findings that could help in fighting the virus in people, UW-Madison researchers said Tuesday. Scientists on campus have infected 13 rhesus macaque monkeys with Zika, a virus that has caused an outbreak involving severe birth defects such as brain damage in Latin America…
How does a formerly innocuous and obscure virus like Zika transform itself into a feared pathogen inflicting a devastating impact on global health? A new UCLA study suggests that the virus possesses the ability to mutate rapidly, allowing the current outbreak to spread swiftly around the world. The Cell Press journal, Cell Host & Microbe, published the findings today in…
Companies advertise BPA-free plastic as a safer version of products ranging from water bottles to sippy cups to toys. Many manufacturers stopped using bisphenol A, a chemical that is used to strengthen plastic, after studies linked it to early puberty and a rise in breast and prostate cancers. However, bisphenol S, or BPS, a common replacement for BPA in plastics,…
Humans have been successful at treating a host of diseases. Yet some continue to elude medicine’s best attempts. Now, researchers at the University of Iowa have revealed how these diseases replicate by tracing the precise steps through which they use a gene absent in humans, called thyX, to code an enzyme to produce thymine. In a paper published online Jan. 28…
While many believe behavior is largely defined by genetic makeup and environmental factors, new research suggests certain drugs can have a life-altering, permanent influence over an individual’s character. The study, out of the University of Pennsylvania, experimented with changing the social behavior of Florida carpenter ants by injecting a drug into their brains, each one playing a different role in the colony. The researchers focused…