Research

A drug-resistant bug that can cause chronic and severe lung infections in patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) is spreading worldwide and becoming gradually more virulent, researchers reported in the journal Science.

The bug, called Mycobacterium abscessus, is typically found in water, soil and dust. Previously, it was thought to be independently acquired by people through contact with the environment. But, the new study revealed that the majority of M. abscessus infections are spreading from one patient to another in clinical settings.

Modern human genomes contain only a small amount of Neanderthal genes or DNA because natural selection purged many of our caveman relative's genes during the process of evolution, according to a new study.

Researchers believe that Neanderthals and modern humans interbred nearly 50,000 years ago, when modern humans were spreading out of Africa. Initially, Neanderthal DNA accounted for the interbred species, but now Neanderthal DNA makes up just around 1.5 to 2.1 per cent of the genomes of humans outside Africa.

Use of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) put teens on the way to become smokers of traditional cigarettes, and they gradually smoke more heavily, according to a new study.

A team of researchers surveyed more than 3,000 school students in the Los Angeles area. Nearly 33 per cent of the 10th-graders admitted that they vaped at least once; while 4 per cent said they used e-cigarettes once or twice in the last month. Five per cent said they vaped more frequently.

The projected widespread loss of coral reefs by 2050 will likely have devastating consequences for millions of people, a new research published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE warned.

Coral reefs around the world are at risk because of manmade carbon emissions, increasing global temperatures and acidification of oceans. A new study by Duke University and the Université de Bretagne Occidentale researchers warned that coral reefs in Western Mexico, Micronesia, parts of Indonesia, Australia and Southeast Asia will be gone by 2050.

Some Southern Hemisphere regions like South America served as a type of refuge for species at the time of the Cretaceous-Palaeogene (K-Pg) extinction event that killed as much as three-quarters of life on Earth, a new study suggested.

A team of paleontologists led by Michael Donovan, a PhD student at Pennsylvania State University, studied fossils and determined that there was an extinction event in South America at the same time as a similar event occurred in North America.

It is difficult to make a dent in the growing problem of childhood obesity just by focusing on school food and physical education programs because childhood obesity rates jump during the holidays, according to a new study.

A team of researchers led by Associate Prof. Paul Von Hippel of the LBJ School of Public Affairs at University of Texas, Austin, examined body mass index (BMI) and obesity prevalence of more than 18,000 kids from the beginning of kindergarten in 2010 till the end of second grade in 2013.

An experimental birth control shot for men has been fund nearly 96 per cent effective at preventing pregnancy, but the study was ended earlier after several volunteers reported side effects like mood swings and altered libido.

In the study, researchers found that only 4 pregnancies resulted among 266 men who used the contraceptive. The method involved a series of shots/injections that effectively lowered the volunteers’ sperm count.

Members of the public will soon be able to get an eagerly-awaited look at fossilized bones of a prehistoric woolly mammoth, thanks to the soon-to-be-opened Bristle Mammoth exhibit.

The remains of the prehistoric mammoth, which roamed Michigan more than 15,000 years ago, were discovered by James Bristle when he digging in his soybean field in October 2015. Later, a team of researchers from the University of Michigan confirmed that the remains belonged to a mammoth.