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Scientists at the Universities of Liverpool and Glasgow have uncovered a possible new method of enhancing nerve repair in the treatment of spinal cord injuries. It is known that scar tissue, which forms following spinal cord injury, creates an impenetrable barrier to nerve regeneration, leading to the irreversible paralysis associated with spinal injuries.

Exercising before breakfast is better for you than exercising afterwards according to new research by scientists at the University of Glasgow. Jason Gill and Nor Farah of the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences conducted a study to compare the effects of exercise performed before and after breakfast on fat loss and metabolic health.

A study by Human Nutrition researchers at the University of Glasgow has revealed that Scots' waistlines have become bigger in the last 10 years. The research by Professor Mike Lean and colleagues in the School of Medicine also suggests that muscle mass is falling. The researchers compared data from the Scottish Health Surveys from 1998, 2003, 2008 and concluded that people were heavier and fatter in 2003 than in 1998, with a less marked increase between 2003 and 2008.

A new study, by scientists from the Universities of York, Glasgow and Leeds, involving analysis of fossil and geological records going back 540 million years, suggests that biodiversity on Earth generally increases as the planet warms. But the research says that the increase in biodiversity depends on the evolution of new species over millions of years, and is normally accompanied by extinctions of existing species.

The breakdown of oestrogen could play an important role in the onset of a rare but devastating condition of high blood pressure in the lungs. In a study funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and published in American Heart Association journal Circulation , scientists from the University of Glasgow showed that high levels of an enzyme in the lungs called CYP1B1 - which breaks down oestrogen into harmful smaller molecules - could play a role in the development of pulmonary arterial hypertension.

Research published today in the journal Nature gives a detailed picture of how scientists are looking to the much warmer Antarctic climate of the distant past to learn more about how the planet could look in the future if climate change continues unchecked. The University of Glasgow's James Bendle is one of the authors of the paper, which is part of a major international research project to examine the Earth's climate during the 'Greenhouse world' of the early Eocene epoch, between 48 and 55 million years ago.

An inexpensive and routinely performed blood test could help identify patients with high blood pressure who are at increased risk of dying from the condition. Scientists at the University of Glasgow have found that one of the parameters in the routine full blood count - the volume percentage of red blood cells in blood known as haematocrit (hct) - is an independent biomarker for early death in patients with high blood pressure.

The University of Glasgow has been named as an Arthritis Research UK (ARUK) Experimental Arthritis Treatment Centre - the first in Scotland. The Centre will recruit local patients to test new and existing drugs and to find new approaches that can predict which treatment works best in individuals. With joint start-up funding of £225,000 over three years from medical research charity Arthritis Research UK and the Scottish Government's Chief Scientist Office, the centre aims to take forward the recent advances in the treatments available for people with arthritis.

Researchers led by a team from the University of Glasgow and Oslo University Hospital, Norway have discovered that while changes in the emotions of adolescent females are directly related to age those from young males are influenced by the changing patterns of reproductive hormones that occur as individuals become more sexually mature.

Regular exercise in a natural environment may cut the risk of suffering from poor mental health by half, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Glasgow studied the use of natural and non-natural environments for physical activity, like walking, running and cycling. They found regular use of natural environments such as forests and parks seemed to protect against mental ill-health, whilst use of non-natural environments like a gym, did not.

Men who are heavy tea drinkers may be more likely to develop prostate cancer, according to research from scientists at the University of Glasgow which is published in the journal 'Nutrition and Cancer'. The study, which was led by Kashif Shafique of the Institute of Health & Wellbeing at the University of Glasgow tracked the health of more than 6,000 male volunteers over a period of 37 years and discovered that those who drank more than seven cups of tea per day had a 50% higher risk of developing prostate cancer compared with non-tea drinkers or those drinking less than 4 cups per day.

Scientists at the University of Glasgow have been collaborating with colleagues at the University of Nevada, Reno to watch the Sierra Nevada mountain range grow in real time. Using cutting-edge measurement technology, they have concluded that the range, which stretches for 400 miles between California and Nevada, is rising at a relatively fast rate of one to two millimetres each year.

Engineers and scientists at the University of Glasgow are developing a new method of treating head and neck cancers they believe will make therapy more targeted and effective. Cancer kills over 150,000 people in the UK every year and oral/head and neck cancer (HNC) is in the top ten worldwide, with major risk factors being tobacco and alcohol consumption.

A volcanic super-eruption in America's Yellowstone National Park two million years ago was actually two smaller eruptions 6,000 years apart, new research has revealed. Scientists at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC) and Washington State University in the USA have used a 'rock clock' dating technique to more precisely determine when volcanic rock samples from the Huckleberry Ridge Tuff were created.

Scientists at the University of Glasgow have taken a major step forward in the quest to develop new, safer drugs for the treatment of sleeping sickness. The team at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Molecular Parasitology has gained new insight into a specific protein within the parasite responsible for the disease, which could help in the design of new parasite-specific drugs.

A study undertaken by the University of Glasgow alongside four other UK universities suggests that a psychological treatment called Cognitive Therapy (CT) is more effective in reducing the severity of psychotic experiences in young adults. The study, which is the largest of its kind in the world, is published on www.bmj.com The new research claims that CT, combined with monitoring, is more effective in reducing the severity, frequency and intensity of psychotic experiences that can eventually lead to conditions such as schizophrenia.

Storytelling is a skill not everyone can master, but even the most crashing bore gets help from their audience's brain which 'talks over' their monotonous quotes, according to scientists. Researchers from the University of Glasgow's Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology investigated the 'voice-selective' areas of the brain and revealed that when listening to someone monotonously repeating direct speech quotations, the brain will 'talk over' the speaker to make the quotes more vivid.

Two international studies published by The Lancet have uncovered new evidence that a particular protein plays a significant role in the development of coronary heart disease (CHD). The studies revealing the role of interleukin-6 receptor (IL6R), a protein involved in inflammatory signalling, pave the way for the use of drugs targeted at this pathway to prevent CHD.

A new type of rabies virus has been discovered in Tanzania by scientists from the University of Glasgow and the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA). The virus was identified as part of a rabies surveillance research project funded by the Wellcome Trust and was investigated following an unusual incident when a child was attacked by a civet - a cat-like nocturnal mammal - in a part of the Serengeti which was thought to be rabies-free.

The introduction of the ban on smoking in public places in Scotland resulted in a decrease in preterm delivery in pregnancy and small for gestational age rates, according to a new study. The research, led by Professor Jill Pell in the Institute of Health & Wellbeing at the University of Glasgow, and published in PLoS Medicine , looked at statistics for preterm delivery and gestational age in 716,941single-baby births before and after the introduction of the smoking legislation on 26 March 2006.