Increasing the amount of SUMO, a small protein in the brain, could be a way of treating diseases such as epilepsy and schizophrenia, reveal scientists at the University of Bristol, UK. Their findings are published online today in Nature.

The brightest stellar explosion ever recorded may be a long-sought new type of supernova, according to observations by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ground-based optical telescopes. This discovery indicates that violent explosions of extremely massive stars were relatively common in the early universe, and that a similar explosion may be ready to go off in our own Galaxy.

Coral reefs, among Earth's richest ecosystems, traditionally teem with an abundance of life. But in recent years, corals have been dying in droves. Scientists suspect a variety of factors, ranging from accidental damage from fishing activity to the effects of polluted runoff from land.

One threat that appears to be growing dramatically in Australia's famed Great Barrier Reef is white syndrome, a disease that is spreading rapidly, leaving stripes of dead corals like ribbons of death in its wake.

A new, highly destructive strain of wheat stem rust is continuing to evolve and has the potential to devastate wheat production worldwide, say plant pathologists with The American Phytopathological Society (APS).

According to two international-research studies on the last ice age, studies with the participation of Dr Rainer Zahn, research professor in the ICREA at the UAB Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA), before the great ice sheets of the Arctic Ocean began to melt, early sporadic episodes of melting of the old ice sheet which covered the British Isles had already begun to affect the circulation of the ocean currents, which played a key role in the climatic stability of the planet.

Based on this observation, scientists consider that the acceleration of the melting of the Greenland ice cap could play an important role in the future stability of ocean circulation and, hence, in the development of climate change.

According to this study, marital sex is the single greatest HIV risk for women around the world.

Marital infidelity by men is so deeply ingrained across many cultures, say Mailman School of Public Health researchers, existing HIV prevention programs are putting a growing number of women at risk of developing the HIV virus.

The findings, indicating that globally, prevention programs that take a "just say no” approach and encourage men to be monogamous are unlikely to be effective, underline the need for programs that make extramarital sex safer, rather than—unrealistically—trying to eradicate it.

The article’s lead author, Jennifer S.