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A new study, the largest of its kind, has systematically examined International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies over the past three decades. It found that—despite claims to have reformed their practices following the global financial crisis—the IMF has in fact ramped up the number of conditions imposed on borrower nations to pre-crisis levels.

Massive amounts of data require infrastructure to manage and store the information in a manner than can be easily accessed for use. While technologies have scaled to allow researchers to sequence and annotate communities of microorganisms within an environment,(its “microbiome”), on an ever-increasing scale, the data management aspect has not been developed in parallel.

A team led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory used neutron analysis to better understand a protein implicated in the replication of HIV, the retrovirus that causes AIDS. The enzyme, known as HIV-1 protease, is a key drug target for HIV and AIDS therapies.

(Phys.org)—A team of researchers at the University of Maryland has taken the idea of making wood transparent one better, by making it stronger than glass and thus more useful for a variety of applications. In their paper published in the journal Advanced Materials, the team describes the process they have developed for making transparent wood stronger and why they believe it might be useful in solar panel development.

The brown-headed cowbird is nothing short of a nightmare for its hosts: If they eject the brood parasite’s eggs from the nest, it punishes them by destroying their entire clutch. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön and Harvard University have designed a mathematical model for analyzing the interaction between avian brood parasites and their hosts.

Carbon nanotubes, or tiny hollow cylinders of one-atom-thick carbon sheets, have incredible potential for a wide variety of applications due to their strength, flexibility, and other uniquely powerful properties. They are particularly promising in nanotechnology and electronics applications, but Carnegie Mellon University’s Kris Dahl and Mohammad Islam are on an interdisciplinary mission to put these carbon nanotubes to a new use—in medicine.

Professor Hannes Lohi’s research group at the University of Helsinki has discovered three novel canine genes for Caffey, Raine and van den Ende-Gupta syndromes. Research reveals close similarities of the canine models of human rare disorders and highlights the potential of comparative research approach for the development of rare disease diagnostics and treatments.

Given that the most important societal needs require multidisciplinary collaboration between researchers and decision makers, a suitable environment has to be provided in the first place. A proposal, prepared by a Finnish consortium and published in the open access journal Research Ideas and Outcomes, suggests a new, open virtual work and modeling platform to support evidence-based decision making in a number of areas, while also abiding by the principles of openness, criticism and reuse.

For the first time, the genomes of the giraffe and its closest living relative, the reclusive okapi of the African rainforest, have been sequenced—revealing the first clues about the genetic changes that led to the evolution of the giraffe’s exceptionally long neck and its record-holding ranking as the world’s tallest land species. The research will be published in the scientific journal Nature Communications on May 17, 2016.