http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. An estimated 25,000 Americans develop severe fungal infections each year, leading to 10,000 deaths despite the use of anti-fungal drugs. The associated cost to the U.S. health care system has been estimated at $1 billion a year. http://www.physorg.com/news180711441.html Biology Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:50:06 EST news180711441 Mold and mildew may be doomed. Researchers are closer to understanding how these and other fungi grow. "Fungi have a big impact on our dinner plate," said Dr. Brian Shaw, Texas AgriLife Research plant pathologist. "We tend to think that getting food on the table is easy. But fungi are major disease-causing organisms for both plants and animals. With more research, we can find new ways to compete with them." Commonly known fungi are molds, mildews, mushrooms and yeast. http://www.physorg.com/news180681595.html Biology Tue, 22 Dec 2009 05:22:35 EST news180681595 (PhysOrg.com) -- A device developed by an Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist to sort wheat has been successfully used to detect and remove popcorn kernels that have been damaged by fungi. http://www.physorg.com/news180172767.html Biology Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:00:01 EST news180172767 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have discovered that spring-fruiting fungi, including the morel and St George`s mushroom are fruiting nearly three weeks earlier than they did 50 years ago. http://www.physorg.com/news179599392.html Biology Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:00:04 EST news179599392 (PhysOrg.com) -- Water expands when it freezes. Anyone who has ever left a can of soda or bottle of water in the freezer too long has witnessed this first hand. So how do plants and animals survive severe temperatures? http://www.physorg.com/news178307122.html Biology Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:45:47 EST news178307122 (PhysOrg.com) -- A fungus may help solve a problem of a grapefruit compound that interacts negatively with certain prescription drugs, according to studies by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists. http://www.physorg.com/news177696902.html Chemistry Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:40:01 EST news177696902 Infectious organisms that become resistant to antibiotics are a serious threat to human society. They are also a natural part of evolution. In a new project, researchers at the University of Gothenburg are attempting to find substances that can slow the pace of evolution, in order to ensure that the drugs of today remain effective into the future. http://www.physorg.com/news177611481.html Biology Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:31:52 EST news177611481 The war between the sexes has been fought on many fronts throughout time -- from humans to birds to insects, the animal kingdom is replete with species involved in their own skirmishes. A recent study by Dr. Sarah Eppley and colleagues at Portland State University published in the November issue of the American Journal of Botany demonstrates that certain plants, with some help from fungal friends, may also be involved in this fray. http://www.physorg.com/news177083366.html Biology Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:00:02 EST news177083366 (AP) -- A Chinese scholar persecuted during the Cultural Revolution for smuggling a rare collection of mushrooms out of China before World War II was honored Saturday when the collection was returned more than 70 years later. http://www.physorg.com/news176809684.html Biology Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:10:02 EST news176809684 The skin of that pumpkin you carve into a Jack-o'-Lantern to scare away ghosts and goblins on Halloween contains a substance that could put a scare into microbes that cause millions of cases of yeast infections in adults and infants each year. That's the conclusion of a new study in the current issue of ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. http://www.physorg.com/news175953381.html Chemistry Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:00:02 EST news175953381 Fungi travelled to Madagascar in the intestines of termites. Fungus serves as a source of food and helps in cellulose conversion. http://www.physorg.com/news174241876.html Biology Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:31:49 EST news174241876 Seven new glow-in-the-dark mushroom species have been discovered, increasing the number of known luminescent fungi species from 64 to 71. Reported today in the journal Mycologia, the new finds include two new species named after movements in Mozart's Requiem. The discoveries also shed light on the evolution of luminescence, adding to the number of known lineages in the fungi 'family tree' where luminescence has been reported. http://www.physorg.com/news173966973.html Biology Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:10:29 EST news173966973 Plants are anything but as defenceless as they might seem. Various plant hormones work together to specifically fend off attacks. Dutch researcher Antonio Leon-Reyes has now shown how these hormones cooperate. By 'consulting' with each other plant hormones determine which defence mechanism they shall set in motion. http://www.physorg.com/news171137116.html Biology Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:10:01 EST news171137116 Like most invasive plants introduced to the U.S. from Europe and other places, garlic mustard first found it easy to dominate the natives. A new study indicates that eventually, however, its primary weapon - a fungus-killing toxin injected into the soil - becomes less potent. http://www.physorg.com/news171049065.html Biology Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:38:24 EST news171049065 A chemical compound found in unpasteurised food has been detected in unusually high levels in the red blood cells of pregnant women with the condition pre-eclampsia. http://www.physorg.com/news170420742.html Medicine & Health Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:50:03 EST news170420742 Lichens are the classic example of a symbiotic relationship. Both the fungal and photobiont components of the lichen benefit from the relationship and often are unable to survive without each other. Recent research by Dr. Robert Lücking (The Field Museum, Chicago), Dr. James Lawrey (George Mason University, Virginia) and a team of colleagues from around the world has put a new spin on this relationship. http://www.physorg.com/news170093604.html Biology Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:13:50 EST news170093604 Three Thai orchids have been found to rely on a wide range of fungi to help them take carbon out of the soil instead of producing their own organic carbon. A detailed study of the relationship, published in the open access journal BMC Biology, also features stunning pictures of the plants. http://www.physorg.com/news169411384.html Biology Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:20:01 EST news169411384 Brown University researchers have discovered that Candida albicans, a human fungal pathogen that causes thrush and other diseases, pursues same-sex mating in addition to conventional opposite-sex mating. http://www.physorg.com/news169312643.html Biology Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:10:02 EST news169312643 With the information explosion, it's remarkable that so little is known about the interactions that proteins have with each other and the protective membrane that surrounds a cell. These interactive, so-called membrane proteins regulate nutrients and water fluxes, sense environmental threats, and are the communications interface with neighboring cells and within the cell. http://www.physorg.com/news168788988.html Chemistry Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:50:21 EST news168788988 Thread-like fungi that grow in soils at high elevations may play an important role in restoring whitebark and limber pine forests in Canada. Montana State University professor Cathy Cripps is looking for ways to use fungi to help pine seedlings get a strong start. http://www.physorg.com/news167057753.html Biology Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:56:44 EST news167057753 Emory researchers are tapping the latest-generation DNA sequencing technology to become the first explorers of the genomics of agricultural ant societies. http://www.physorg.com/news166355602.html Biology Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:53:45 EST news166355602 (PhysOrg.com) -- By using ultrafast laser pulses to slice off pieces of chromosomes and observe how the chromosomes behave, biomedical engineers at the University of Michigan have gained pivotal insights into mitosis, the process of cell division. http://www.physorg.com/news162823156.html Biology Fri, 29 May 2009 13:39:58 EST news162823156 For years, genes have been considered the one and only way biological traits could be passed down through generations of organisms. Not anymore. http://www.physorg.com/news161864762.html Biology Mon, 18 May 2009 11:26:52 EST news161864762 Sick people often lose their sense of smell and their appetite. If this happened to mosquitoes, they would not be able to feed on humans and spread malaria. A team of Penn State entomologists is looking for an insect disease that will infect mosquitoes and impair their sense of smell. http://www.physorg.com/news160921411.html Biology Thu, 07 May 2009 13:24:06 EST news160921411 By lending them a gene normally reserved for other classes of animals, researchers have shown they can rescue flies from their Parkinson's-like symptoms, including movement defects and excess free radicals produced in power-generating cellular components called mitochondria. The gene swap also protects healthy flies' mitochondria, and to a large extent the flies themselves, from the damaging effects of cyanide and other toxins, the team reports in the May issue of Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication. http://www.physorg.com/news160752389.html Biology Tue, 05 May 2009 14:27:31 EST news160752389 (PhysOrg.com) -- Tiny mites living on the surface of Madagascar hissing cockroaches help decrease the presence of a variety of molds on the cockroaches' bodies, potentially reducing allergic responses among humans who handle the popular insects, according to new research. http://www.physorg.com/news160229519.html Biology Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:12:25 EST news160229519 New diseases directly affect human survival and food security, especially as population density climbs. Leaf-cutting ants, one of a few groups of social insects to cultivate crops, have harvested plant material to fertilize their underground fungal gardens for ~50 million years. New results from the Smithsonian show that both the ants and their fungal crop actively combat fungi coming into the nest inside leaves, thus ensuring the health of their mutualism. http://www.physorg.com/news157916918.html Biology Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:49:17 EST news157916918 A new study of proteins, the molecular machines that drive all life, also sheds light on the history of living organisms. http://www.physorg.com/news155940241.html Biology Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:44:33 EST news155940241 (PhysOrg.com) -- Those pesky fungi that wreak havoc on such important crops as corn and wheat just might be the key to low-cost biofuel production, report Cornell researchers who have improved a method to screen hundreds of fungal species rapidly to find ones that can most efficiently produce biofuels. http://www.physorg.com/news153682347.html Biology Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:33:07 EST news153682347 Even the most drug-resistant fungi can be eradicated in multiple in vitro and in vivo models using a lethal combination of an antifungal agent and inhibition of the heat shock protein Hsp90, according to a new study by Whitehead Institute and University of Toronto researchers. The findings could enable development of novel antifungal therapies for patients with compromised immune systems. http://www.physorg.com/news153421665.html Medicine & Health Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:08:25 EST news153421665