Neuroscientists at Johns Hopkins are a step closer to understanding pain sensitivity - specifically why it’s variable instead of constant - having identified a gene that regulates a heat-activated molecular sensor.

While some uncertainty does exist in climate projections and future health vulnerability, overall increases in heat-related premature mortality are likely by the 2050s, according to a recent study by Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and soon to be published in the November 2007 issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

An ancient mechanism for coping with environmental stresses, including heat and toxic exposures, also helps cancerous tumors survive, reveals a new report in the Sept. 21, 2007, issue of Cell, a publication of Cell Press. The findings could lead to a new way to treat cancer and may also have implications for the treatment of neurodegenerative and other diseases, according to the researchers.

A Jekyll-Hyde mechanism that both protects healthy cells and enables cancer cells could be the basis for new cancer-fighting drugs.

Reproductive efficiency has suffered a dramatic decrease since the mid 1980s despite rapid worldwide progress in genetics and management of high producing dairy herds. The reasons for the decline in fertility are multifactorial and cannot be solely attributed to an increase in milk production.

Isoprene is a hydrocarbon volatile compound emitted in high quantities by many woody plant species, with significant impact on atmospheric chemistry. The Australian Blue Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains in the Eastern United States are so called because of the spectral properties of the huge amounts of isoprenes emitted from the trees growing there.

A study led by a Purdue University researcher projects a 200 percent to 500 percent increase in the number of dangerously hot days in the Mediterranean by the end of the 21st century if the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions continues. The study found France would be subjected to the largest projected increase of high-temperature extremes.