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The article provides information on the study conducted by Jack Dunitz and Richard Ibberson that compared the sizes of hydrogen and deuterium. The researchers took careful measurements of the crystal structures of benzene and fully deuterated benzene at temperatures between five kelvin and 280 kelvin. They observed that the volume of a molecule of the fully deuterated benzene exceeds that of the crystal structures of benzene of about 170 kelvin. Based on the results, the researchers concluded that deuterium takes up less space than hydrogen due to its greater mass that gives it a smaller vibration amplitude in the lowest-energy quantum state.

The article provides information about the study conducted by a research team led by Paul Brennan that focused on the six alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) enzymes. The researchers analysed six ADH variants in 3,876 patients with head and neck cancers and 5,278 healthy people. They found out a variant of each of the two genes ADH1B and ADH7 seemed to lower the risk of developing cancers in alcohol drinkers. Based on the results, the group concluded that the variants are of genes that encode ADH enzymes, which catalyse the breakdown of alcohols.

The article provides information on a study, conducted by a research team led by Jonathan Prince of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, that examined the association of insulin-degrading enzyme (IDE) and the lifespan of men. The researchers found that human males with one copy of a certain version of IDE and one copy of a different version make higher than usual amounts of IDE ribonucleic acid (RNA). In conclusion, they stated that these men also tended to die younger than those carrying two replicates of the IDE type.

The article provides information on the study, conducted by a research team led by Adrian Lenardic of Rice University in Houston, Texas, that examined the effect of climate on the interior of a planet. The researchers worked out that temperature increases at a terrestrial surface of the planet could penetrate deep into the planet and eventually shutting down the movement of tectonic plates. According to them, the carbon dioxide blanket in Venus' atmosphere might help to explain why it appears to have a single, static plate.

The article focuses on the characteristic of human malarial parasite called Plasmodium (P.) knowlesi. It mentions about the study conducted by Janet Cox-Singh and her colleagues which proved that humans can harbour a fifth malaria parasite or the P. knowlesi, which was once thought to infect only Asian monkeys. They detected that the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of the parasite in about one third of 1,014 malaria patients in Malaysia. Based on the case, the author notes that an unknown animal pathogen can cause widespread human disease since P. knowlesi is always misidentified as P. malariae.

The article provides information about a study that compared particular genetic sequences from gut microbes found in the faeces of 106 mammals. A research team led by Jeffrey Gordon of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri conducted the study and they found that among the 60 species represented in the sample, carnivores tend to have a less diverse internal flora than omnivores. In connection, they stated that modern human support similar gut microbes to those of other omnivores.

Malaria has plagued humans since the dawn of written history, and probably since long before that. These days, biologists understand tiny mechanistic details of the workings of one human malarial [...]