News by Subject Biology

Plants use hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) -- best known for use in bleach and hair treatments -- to control how their cells react to varying levels of light, new research shows.

Slow-growing ponderosa pines may have a better chance of surviving mountain pine beetle outbreaks in western Montana as climate change increases the frequency of drought and insect pests, according to new research published by a team of University of Montana scientists.

It turns out your skin is crawling with single-celled microorganisms -- and they're not just bacteria. A study by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the Medical University of Graz has found that the skin microbiome also contains archaea, a type of extreme-loving microbe, and that the amount of it varies with age.

Technology developed at Western University and Lawson Health Research Institute can provide a new window into whether or not patients are responding to treatment for advanced ovarian cancer. A multi-center clinical trial has demonstrated that CT Perfusion, which measures blood flow and blood volume to tumors associated with ovarian cancer, can provide an accurate prediction of how well a treatment is working, allowing physicians the opportunity to better plan treatment.

Scientists are a step closer to understanding how our DNA is squeezed into every cell in the body. They provide the first-ever detailed picture of the nucleosome, the most basic building block of chromosomes (the structures that house our DNA). This finding will inform research on all processes that involve chromosomes, such as gene expression and DNA repair, which are critical to the understanding of diseases such as cancer.

Midwestern growers don't worry much about soybean rust, but the fungal disease has been popping up at the end of the growing season nearly every year since 2006. But because the fungus can't survive winter without a host plant, it's not much of a threat to Midwest crops under current conditions. But it's a major problem for soybean growers in Africa and South America. University of Illinois researchers have evaluated which strains are most virulent.