Channel 42
Science is the answer to everything.

The first head-to-head comparison of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies produced from plants versus the same antibodies produced from mammalian cells has shown that plant-produced antibodies can fight infection equally well. Scientists conducted the comparison as a test of the potential for treating disease in developing nations with the significantly less expensive plant-based production technique.

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GEOLOGY presents studies of mineralized microfossils in the Yukon; what the Great Barrier Reef tells us about sea level; a new find in Japan of fossilized iridescent leaf-beetle wings; the puzzle of Ediacara biota; mammalian fossils in Mongolia; a dust bowl long before the Dust Bowl in the North American Great Plains; fish-eating semi-aquatic spinosaurs; evidence against the Lilliput Effect; and geochemical mapping of Mars. GSA TODAY explains how rock is converted to soil.

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An early stage clinical trial of the experimental drug dimebon (latrepirdine) in people with Huntington’s disease appears to be safe and may improve cognition. That is the conclusion of a study published today in the Archives of Neurology.

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Nicotine in third-hand smoke, the residue from tobacco smoke that clings to virtually all surfaces long after a cigarette has been extinguished, reacts with the common indoor air pollutant nitrous acid to produce dangerous carcinogens. This new potential health hazard was revealed in a multi-institutional study led by researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

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Brown University biologist Erika Edwards and a colleague have found that rainfall, not temperature, was the primary trigger for the evolutionary beginnings of C4 tropical grasses. Their results are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology and their colleagues have tied the human aversion to losing money to a specific structure in the brain — the amygdala.

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Two patients with rare lesions to the brain have provided direct of evidence of how we make decisions — and what makes us dislike the thought of losing money.

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A new tool may help standardize the use of computed tomography (CT scans) in children with minor head injury and help reduce the number of scans, according to a new study in CMAJ.

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A Mediterranean diet may help people avoid the small areas of brain damage that can lead to problems with thinking and memory, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 62nd Annual Meeting in Toronto April 10-17, 2010.

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Advanced maternal age is linked to a significantly elevated risk of having a child with autism, regardless of the father’s age, according to an exhaustive study of all births in California during the 1990s by UC Davis Health System researchers.

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