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Science is the answer to everything.

Logic says it has to be the niche. As air and water preceded life, so the niche, that hospitable environment that shelters adult stem cells in many tissues and provides factors necessary to keep them young and vital, must have emerged before its stem cell dependents.

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The selective gene-silencing technique called RNA interference holds promise for medicine if it can be adapted to work in humans. Certain antibiotic compounds called fluoroquinolones enhance the effectiveness of RNA interference in cells and could reduce potential side effects.

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Mouse mothers-to-be have a remarkable way to protect their unborn pups. Because the smell of a strange male’s urine can cause miscarriage and reactivate the ovulatory cycle, pregnant mice prevent the action of such olfactory stimuli by blocking their smell. Researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Monterotondo, Italy, have now revealed the nature of this ability.

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A study by researchers at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), in collaboration with the Instituto de Biología Molecular of CSIC, reveal a mechanism that controls the movement of cells in a tissue by regulating cell adhesion. This same mechanism may be defective in diseases such as cancer and metastasis, when tumour cells lose their adhesion to neighbouring cells and migrate through the organism. The results have been published in Nature Cell Biology.

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The white horse is an icon for dignity which has had a huge impact on human culture across the world. An international team led by researchers at Uppsala University has now identified the mutation causing this spectacular trait and show that it can be traced back to an ancestor that lived thousands of years ago. The study is interesting for medical research since this mutation also enhance the risk for melanoma. The paper is published on July 20 on the Web site of Nature Genetics.

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The study of dark-skinned mice has led to a surprising finding about a common protein involved in tumor suppression, report researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The results may lead to new treatments for bone marrow failure in humans.

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Some 700 leading world scientists from 28 nations convene in Brazil July 21-25 amid growing concern that evaporation and ongoing destruction of world wetlands, which hold a volume of carbon similar to that in the atmosphere today, could cause them to exhale billows of greenhouse gases.Warming world temperatures are speeding both rates of decomposition of trapped organic material and evaporation, while threatening critical sources of wetlands recharge.

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Every aging baby boomer listens for the footsteps of Alzheimer’s, and for good reason: It’s estimated that 10 million American boomers will develop the disease. The need to develop preventative strategies, ideally long before …

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