As the world looks to American innovation to fight Ebola, malaria, tuberculosis, and a host of other health threats, a new report released today on Capitol Hill warns budget battles in Washington are eroding preparedness at home and abroad at a time when scientific advances are poised to deliver new lifesaving drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics.

Young adolescents' judgements on how risky a situation might be are most influenced by what other teenagers think, while most other age groups are more influenced by adults' views, finds a new survey by psychologists.

BioBlast Pharma Ltd. has announced positive preclinical in vitro and in vivo proof-of-concept study results for its mitochondrial protein replacement therapy drug candidate (BB-FA) for Friedreich's Ataxia.

Friedreich's Ataxia is an inherited disorder characterized by progressive deterioration of the muscular and nervous system that begins in the first or second decade of life and results in gait disturbance (ataxia), cognitive impairment, progressive heart disease and diabetes. According to Friedreich's Ataxia Research Alliance (FARA), about 1:50,000 people in the U.S. suffer from Friedreich's Ataxia. Most patients are wheelchair-bound within 15 years of diagnosis.

Antioxidants provide long-term protection against the chain reactions of free radical processes, in other words, of the molecules that are capable of causing cell damage and generating various diseases. Free radicals harm our body by causing, in the best of cases, ageing and, in the worse, serious diseases. Lettuce is rich in antioxidants, as it contains compounds like phenolic acids, flavonoids, anthocyanins, and vitamins A and C, among other things.

Green, semi-red and red leaves

Reclusive giant pandas fascinate the world, yet precious little is known about how they spend their time in the Chinese bamboo forests. Until now.

A team of Michigan State University (MSU) researchers who have been electronically stalking five pandas in the wild, courtesy of rare GPS collars, have finished crunching months of data and has published some panda surprises in this month's Journal of Mammalogy.

A camera trap captures a panda walking through the snow in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China. Credit: Michigan State University Center for Systems Integration

Traditionally, to understand how a gene functions, a scientist would breed an organism that lacks that gene - "knocking it out" - then ask how the organism has changed. Are its senses affected? Its behavior? Can it even survive? Thanks to the recent advance of gene editing technology, this gold standard genetic experiment has become much more accessible in a wide variety of organisms. Now, researchers at Rockefeller University have harnessed a technique known as CRISPR-Cas9 editing in an important and understudied species: the mosquito, Aedes aegypti, which infects hundreds of millions of people annually with the deadly diseases chikungunya, yellow fever, and dengue fever.