The genes that make up the immune system of the Aedes aegypti mosquito which transmits deadly viral diseases to humans have been identified in new research out today in Science.

The immune system of this mosquito is of great importance as scientists believe it plays a key role in controlling the transmission of viruses that cause yellow and dengue fevers – diseases that infect over 50 million people worldwide every year.

Scientists have provided new details about how proteins used to destroy bacteria and viruses may help treat Alzheimer’s disease. Gunnar K. Gouras, associate professor of neurology and neuroscience at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, and colleagues provide new insights into how these proteins, called antibodies, reduce the main hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease and raise hopes for a vaccine against the disease.

“Antibodies are probably the most promising experimental approach to fight Alzheimer’s disease at this time,” Gouras says. “The discoveries made using antibodies are so encouraging that results of ongoing vaccine trials against the disease are much anticipated.”

It may not seem so at the time, but women who suffer through morning sickness during their pregnancies actually may be fortunate.

Those women may have a 30 percent lower risk of developing breast cancer later in life than mothers-to-be who experience nine nausea-free months, a new study by epidemiologists at the University at Buffalo suggests.

“Although the exact mechanism responsible for causing nausea and vomiting during pregnancy has yet to be pinpointed, it likely is a result of changing levels of ovarian and placental hormone production, which may include higher circulating levels of a hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin,” said David Jaworowicz, Jr., first author on the study.

Researchers at the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease (MGH-MIND) have identified a potential new drug target for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease and possibly for other degenerative neurological disorders.

The investigators have found, in cellular and animal models, that blocking the action of an enzyme called SIRT2 can protect the neurons damaged in Parkinson’s disease from the toxic effects of alpha-synuclein, a protein that accumulates in the brains of Parkinson’s patients. The study also suggests that inhibiting this pathway could help in the treatment of other conditions in which abnormal proteins accumulate in the brain.

In a new, large-scale, prospective study exploring the link between levels of urate in the blood and risk of Parkinson’s disease, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have found that high levels of urate are strongly associated with a reduced risk of the disease. The findings were published online on June 20, 2007 in The American Journal of Epidemiology and will appear in an upcoming print issue of the journal.

Urate is a normal component of blood, and although high levels can lead to gout, urate might also have beneficial effects because it is a potent antioxidant.

"Nothing there," is what Case Western Reserve University physicists concluded about black holes after spending a year working on complex formulas to calculate the formation of new black holes. In nearly 13 printed pages with a host of calculations, the research may solve the information loss paradox that has perplexed physicists for the past 40 years.

"It's complicated and very complex," noted Case physicists Tanmay Vachaspati, Dejan Stojkovic and Lawrence M. Krauss, regarding both the general problem and their particular approach to try to solve it.

The question that the physicists set out to solve is: what happens once something collapses into a black hole" If all information about the collapsing matter is lost, it defies the laws of quantum physics.