LIfe Sciences News

A chemically altered osteoporosis drug may be useful in fighting malaria, researchers report in a new study. Unlike similar compounds tested against many other parasitic protozoa, the drug readily crosses into the red blood cells of malaria-infected mice and kills the malaria parasite. The drug works at very low concentrations with no observed toxicity to the mouse.

A small population of rattlesnakes that already is in decline in southern Illinois faces a new and unexpected threat in the form of a fungus rarely seen in the wild, researchers report.

Ants exposed to Iraqi plutonium turn a Los Angeles skyscraper into a nightmarish death trap, and diamond miners confront a bloodthirsty ant swarm in the Namib Desert in this years Insect Fear Film Festival at the University of Illinois Foellinger Auditorium on Feb. 25 (Saturday).

Researchers have found a way to study how our brains assess the behavior and likely future actions of others during competitive social interactions. Their study, described in a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to use a computational approach to tease out differing patterns of brain activity during these interactions, the researchers report.

University of Illinois researchers determined that an adult stem cell present in muscle is responsive to exercise, a discovery that may provide a link between exercise and muscle health. The findings could lead to new therapeutic techniques using these cells to rehabilitate injured muscle and prevent or restore muscle loss with age.

If you were a blind, cannibalistic sea slug, living among others just like you, nearly every encounter with another creature would require a simple cost/benefit calculation: Should I eat that, do nothing or flee?