Fruit Fly Avoidance Mechanism Could Lead To New Ways To Control Pain In Humans
At first, fruit flies eat like horses. Hatching inside over-ripe fruit where they were laid, they feed wildly in the sugar-rich environment until nature sends them an offer they can't refuse. To survive, they must leave the fruit, wander off and burrow into the earth where they avoid food as if it were poison. Only then can the larvae grow and hatch into flies that will take wing to lay their own eggs. Researchers have now discovered that the important developmental switch from food attraction to aversion in the fruit fly larva is controlled by a timing mechanism in the brain and its sensory system. The study shows how this important avoidance mechanism has been recruited into evolutionary processes to promote development and could lead to new methods of controlling pain in humans and other animals.

Arsenic-based Therapy Shown To Help Eradicate Leukemia-initiating Cells
In a paradoxical discovery, scientists have found that a tumor suppressor protein known as PML appears to be the factor that enables leukemia initiating cells to maintain their quiescence -- the inert state that protects them from being destroyed by cancer therapies.

How One Mutation Tips Biochemistry To Cause Alzheimer's Disease
Forms of early-onset Alzheimer's disease are known to be hereditary, caused by single point mutations. Now, using sophisticated computer simulations, a team of physical chemists have shown precisely how the substitution of one amino acid for one that is very similar causes a subtle change in the shape of a peptide and tips a very delicate chemical balance, creating build-up of the toxic by-products and finally resulting in catastrophic disease.