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 This week (September 13), three groups of researchers will receive The Golden Goose Award for basic research that may have seemed obscure at the time publication, but which helped usher in momentous change in the public and scientific communities. “We’ve all seen reports that ridicule odd-sounding research projects as examples of government waste,” Representative Jim Cooper from Tennessee, who created the award in partnership with a number of scientific organizations, said in a press release. |
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 A lethal form of Salmonella prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa may have evolved to take advantage of weaknesses in the immune system created by the emergence of HIV, according to a report in Nature Genetics released this week (September 30). A relative of the Salmonella commonly linked to cases of food poisoning, this strain—known as invasive nontyphoidal Salmonella (iNTS)—is spread from person to person and kills up to half the adults it infects. But little is known about how it became so widespread throughout sub-Saharan Africa in the past 50 years. |
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 Strains of the influenza A virus found in pigs at an Ohio county fair are almost genetically identical to the version found in human fair goers, according to a report out last week (October 25) in Emerging Microbes and Infections. The findings suggest that there are little or no biological barriers to transmission between pigs and humans. |
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 Not quite 30 years old, the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is the workhorse of many biology labs. While the basic premise—the amplification of DNA samples of interest—has remained constant, creative twists have allowed scientists to adapt the technique to a plethora of applications, including determination of gene expression levels via copy numbers of specific RNA transcripts via quantitative PCR. Advances in genomics have pushed researchers to boost PCR’s utility by both narrowing the focus—concentrating on genetic information from just one molecule or cell—and widening the net, by increasing the number of reactions run in a single experiment. |
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 The secret to zebrafish’s remarkable capacity for repairing their brains is inflammation, according to a report published online today (November 8) in Science. Neural stem cells in the fish’s brains express a receptor for inflammatory signaling molecules, which prompt the cells to multiply and develop into new neurons. |
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 Bacteria can form multicellular biofilms, which are glued together by an extracellular matrix. Wrinkles in the film—large enough to see with the naked eye—help to provide protection from penetration by water and gases and appear to help the colony ward off antibiotics. The physical forces shaping these 3-D structures were unknown, but Gürol Süel of the University of California at San Diego and his colleagues now show that localized cell death appears to facilitate the formation of wrinkles. Kenneth Bayles, a professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, who was not part of the study, says cell death in bacterial colonies has been underappreciated, and the findings show “there is a very important role for cell death in [biofilm] development.” |
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 Japanese scientists have produced skin and bone marrow from reprogrammed mouse stem cells, and transplanted these into genetically identical mice without triggering a strong immune reaction. These results, published today (January 9) in Nature, should reassure researchers looking to use these cells—known as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)—to treat diseases. |
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 Excess free-floating histones are toxic to cells. Yet researchers have observed massive stores of maternally supplied histones, bound to lipid droplets, in Drosophila embryonic cells. To understand the function of these fat-associated histones, Michael Welte of the University of Rochester and his colleagues disrupted the synthesis of new histones in fly embryos and found support for the idea that lipid droplets help the embryo safely store the excess pre-made histones for times of need. |
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 DUX4, a gene responsible for the genetic disease facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), is normally silenced because it sits next to a telomere—a protective DNA sequence that caps the ends of chromosomes, according to a study published today (May 5) in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. But as telomeres shorten, as they do with age, DUX4 expression climbs, which may explain the late onset of FSHD. Another gene, called FRG2, which sits 100 kilobases away from the telomere, is also affected by telomere length. |
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 A protein-lipid complex that naturally occurs in human breast milk can increase the sensitivity of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and other drug-resistant strains to multiple classes of antibiotics in animal models, according to a study published yesterday (May 1) in the PLOS ONE. |
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 High doses of vitamin C can rapidly wipe out entire populations of drug-resistant strains of the bacteria that cause tuberculosis (TB) by inducing a chemical reaction that produces high levels of DNA-damaging oxidative radicals, according to a study published today (May 21) in Nature Communications. |
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