Ladan Shams, associate professor of Cognitive Psychology recently led research that found that our senses of sight and hearing work closely together, perhaps more so than we might have thought.

Robert Modlin, professor of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics, has been named a fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science for “distinguished contributions toward understanding human antimicrobial pathways, including Th1/Th2 cytokines, TLR 2 recognition of microbial lipoproteins, and the role of vitamin D in immunity.”

Robert Wayne, professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, is co-author of a recent study that produced the most comprehensive mathematical model ever devised to track the health of populations exposed to environmental change. The team’s groundbreaking integral projection model allows researchers to link many different data sources simultaneously.

Robert Wayne, professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, recently led research that produced the most comprehensive mathematical model ever devised to track the health of populations exposed to environmental change. The team’s groundbreaking integral projection model allows researchers to link many different data sources simultaneously. Scientists can now change just a single variable, like temperature, and see how that affects many factors for a population.

Amander Clark, UCLA assistant professor of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, and colleagues recently found that established human embryonic stem cell lines, including those approved for federal research funding, differ from newly derived human embryonic stem cell lines. This finding highlights the importance of continuing to derive new stem cell lines so that researchers can better understand the ability of these cells to make every cell in the human body.

David Walker, assistant professor of Integrative Biology and Physiology, recently led a study showing that when the expression of a single gene, PGC-1, was boosted within the digestive tracts of fruit flies, the flies lived as much as fifty percent longer. PGC-1 activates the cells’ mitochondria and regulates mitochondrial activity in mammals and flies.

Thomas B. Smith, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and colleagues, recently discovered the first evidence of the H1N1 virus in animals in Africa. In one village in northern Cameroon, a staggering 89 percent of the pigs studied had been exposed to the H1N1 virus, commonly known as the swine flu.

Shelley E. Taylor, distinguished professor in the department of Psychology, is senior author of new research that has identified for the first time, a particular gene’s link to optimism, self-esteem, and “mastery,” the belief that one has control over one’s own life— three critical psychological resources for coping well with stress and depression.

Richard Zimmer, a UCLA distinguished professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, and his team, recently published new research on sperm and egg interactions in red abalone, an ocean-dwelling snail. Implications of this research could improve the treatment of human infertility.

John Novembre, UCLA assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and a member of UCLA’s Interdepartmental Program in Bioinformatics, is senior author of a recent paper that published one of the first genetic maps pinpointing where DNA is likely to be reshuffled in the genomes of African Americans — a tool that could help scientists find genes that cause disease.