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For at least 20 years, research has shown that for many people, moderate consumption of alcohol can protect the heart, but the reason for this is poorly understood. A study conducted at the University of São Paulo's Biomedical Science Institute (ICB-USP) in Brazil suggests that this cardioprotective mechanism may be associated with activation of ALDH2 (aldehyde dehydrogenase-2), a mitochondrial enzyme that helps rid the organism of both the toxic byproducts of alcohol digestion and a type of [...]

A research team at the São Paulo State University's Bioscience Institute (IB-UNESP) in Rio Claro, Brazil, has identified 29 fungi with proven action against Xanthomonas citri, a bacterium responsible for citrus canker, an endemic disease in all citrus-producing countries. The origin of the fungi is surprising. They were isolated from samples of soil and marine sediment collected in Antarctica. "These fungi live in isolated conditions and proliferate under inhospitable conditions including low [...]

A platform that can diagnose several diseases with a high degree of precision using metabolic markers found in patients' blood has been developed by scientists at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil. The method combines mass spectrometry, which can identify tens of thousands of molecules present in blood serum, with an artificial intelligence algorithm capable of finding patterns associated with diseases of viral, bacterial, fungal and even genetic origin. The research was [...]

Brasilestes stardusti is the name given to the oldest known mammal found in Brazil. It lived in what is now the northwest of São Paulo State at the end of the Mesozoic Era between 87 million and 70 million years ago. It is the only Brazilian mammal known to have coexisted with the dinosaurs. The discovery of Brasilestes was announced on May 30, 2018, by a team led by Max Langer , a professor at the University of São Paulo's Ribeirão Preto School of Philosophy, Science & Letters [...]

Africanized honeybees, commonly known as "killer bees," are much more aggressive than their European counterparts. Now researchers have examined neuropeptide changes that take place in Africanized honeybees' brains during aggressive behavior. The researchers, who report their results in the Journal of Proteome Research, also showed they could turn gentle bees into angry ones by injecting them with certain peptides. In the 1950s, researchers in Brazil bred Africanized honeybees by crossing [...]

One of the problems caused by the intensive use of pesticides is their effect on organisms other than those they are designed to combat - the most notorious of which is the global mortality of honeybees. However, there are other economically beneficial insects than honeybees which are implicated. "The silkworm is another managed insect whose performance may have been impaired by pesticide poisoning," said Daniel Nicodemo ( http://bv.fapesp.br/en/pesquisador/44473/daniel-nicodemo ), a professor [...]

Detected for the first time in Brazil on the coast of the Southeast region in the late 1980s, when oil and gas prospecting began in the Campos Basin offshore of Rio de Janeiro, sun corals of the genus Tubastraea are now spreading very swiftly throughout the rocky shores and cliffs of Brazilian islands and are considered to be biological invaders. Once biodiverse and multicolored, the reefs in Búzios Island - part of the municipality of Ilhabela, Sao Paulo State, also located at the Southeast [...]

A bite from a lancehead snake can be fatal. Species in the family, found throughout Central and South America, have venom that can disrupt blood clotting and cause hemorrhage, strokes and kidney failure. Solange Serrano, a researcher at the Laboratory of Applied Toxicology at the Instituto Butantan in Sao Paulo, Brazil, studies the protein toxins in venom from these snakes. In a recent article in the journal Molecular & Cellular Proteomics, scientists from Serrano's laboratory, in [...]