Over dinner on R.V. Calypso while anchored on the lee side of Glover's Reef in Belize, Jacques Cousteau told Phil Dustan that he suspected humans were having a negative impact on coral reefs. Dustan—a young ocean ecologist who had worked in the lush coral reefs of the Caribbean and Sinai Peninsula—found this difficult to believe. It was December 1974.

The camera enables the researchers to see an aspect of light that humans are essentially blind to: polarized light. Though humans aren't sensitive to polarized light, many reef dwelling animals are but this has not always been taken into account in previous studies of reef communities.

Drosophila Orb2 plays an important role in the persistence of memory. Memories in our brains are maintained by connections between neurons called "synapses". But how do these synapses stay strong and keep memories alive for decades? Neuroscientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have discovered a major clue from a study in fruit flies: Hardy, self-copying clusters or oligomers of a synapse protein are an essential ingredient for the formation of long-term memory.

The many factors that contribute to how cells communicate and function at the most basic level are still not fully understood, but researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have uncovered a mechanism that helps explain how intracellular membranes fuse, and in the process, created a new physiological membrane fusion model.

A saliva test used to diagnose the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), is comparable in accuracy to the traditional blood test, according to a new study led by the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) and McGill University. The meta-analysis, which compared studies worldwide, showed that the saliva HIV test, OraQuick HIV1/2, had the same accuracy as the blood test for high-risk populations. The test sensitivity was slightly reduced for low risk populations. The study, published in this week's issue of The Lancet Infectious Diseases, has major implications for countries that wish to adopt self-testing strategies for HIV.

Scientists at USC have uncovered evidence that even when hydrothermal sea vents go dormant and their blistering warmth turns to frigid cold, life goes on.

The survival of the endangered snow leopard is looking promising thanks to Monash University scientists who have, for the first time, produced embryonic stem-like cells from the tissue of an adult leopard.

A group of researchers led by the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine (IBB) and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) have achieved to quantify with precision the effect of protein aggregation on cell aging processes using as models the Escherichia coli bacteria and the molecule which triggers Alzheimer's disease. Scientists demonstrated that the effect can be predicted before it occurs. Protein aggregation is related to several diseases, including neurodegenerative diseases.

Bonobos groom each other in Lui Kotale, Salonga National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo. Mate competition by males over females is common in many animal species. During mating season male testosterone levels rise, resulting in an increase in aggressive behavior and masculine features. Male bonobos, however, invest much more into friendly relationships with females. Elevated testosterone and aggression levels would collide with this increased tendency towards forming pair-relationships.

University of Arizona physicist Greg Hodgins awaits results from the accelerator mass spectrometer. If you think a Chihuahua doesn't have much in common with a Rottweiler, you might be on to something.

The "regulatory particle " (in blue) detects the proteins tagged with ubiquitin and prepares them for degradation. The "core particle " (in red) breaks the proteins down into their single components. Defective proteins that are not disposed of by the body can cause diseases such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) of Biochemistry recently succeeded in revealing the structure of the cellular protein degradation machinery (26S proteasome) by combining different methods of structural biology. The results of collaboration with colleagues from the University of California, San Francisco and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zürich) represent an important step forward in the investigation of the 26S proteasome. The findings have now been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Brain scans of people under the influence of the psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, have given scientists the most detailed picture to date of how psychedelic drugs work. The findings of two studies being published in scientific journals this week identify areas of the brain where activity is suppressed by psilocybin and suggest that it helps people to experience memories more vividly.

An excavation at a site in South Africa has unearthed the 190-million-year-old dinosaur nesting site of the prosauropod dinosaur Massospondylus – revealing significant clues about the evolution of complex reproductive behaviour in early dinosaurs.

Simon Fraser University PhD student Brent Loken was hoping to capture images of the elusive Bornean clouded leopard when he set up a camera trap in the rainforest. Instead, he made the re-discovery of a lifetime.