A truly blue rose has been the Holy Grail of rose breeders since 1840, when the horticultural societies of Britain and Belgium offered a prize of 500,000 francs to the first person to produce a blue rose.

Molecular geneticists with Florigene and Suntory achieved the prize that had long eluded conventional rose breeders by combining something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.

Just like people, clams can be affected by the toxins that cause paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP), but scientists have now identified a mutation in clams that gives some protection. PSP toxins interfere with nerve function, and the mutation, which changes a single amino acid in a sodium channel, makes nerves less sensitive to those toxins.

Affymetrix Inc. (Nasdaq: AFFX) and bioMerieux announced today that Affymetrix has granted bioMerieux long-term and comprehensive access to its GeneChip(R) technology to develop and market in vitro diagnostic tests for breast cancer, as well as an option to expand the agreement into other cancer areas.

Researchers have discovered that natural killer T (NKT) cells, the immune system's sentinels, patrol the labyrinthine blood vessels of the liver for invaders or signs of tissue damage and demonstrate a dogged behavior not seen before in other T cells.

Researchers at the University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering have successfully demonstrated a novel "High-resolution Ultrasonic Transmission Tomography" (HUTT) system that offers 3D images of soft tissue that are superior to those produced by existing commercial X-ray, ultrasound or MRI units.

Since 1976 the Ebola virus has caused some lethal human epidemics in Central Africa. Research now indicates that humans do not become directly contaminated from the animal reservoir, which is an any case still unknown, but from infected carcasses of chimpanzees, gorillas and certain forest antelopes. Results have come from work conducted over the past several years by IRD scientists and their partners (1) to shed light on the virus's propagation paths. The discovery of Ebola virus antibodies in several species of non-human primate suggests the existence within this fauna of different degrees of susceptibility to Ebola and, possibly, of strains of various levels of virulence. However, most large primates, once infected, soon die of the disease. Their bodies then become a potential source of contamination for humans, but also for certain domestic animals. Ebola virus antibodies were detected in dogs exposed to the virus during the latest epidemics, which suggests that these animals may well have been infected and can therefore be a new source of transmission to humans. Ebola virus infection in humans provokes a violent haemorrhagic fever. It usually flares up as intense epidemics. These kill 80 % of the people infected. Seven such outbreaks have hit Gabon and the Republic of Congo since 1994, leading to 445 cases resulting in 361 deaths. Ebola virus thus constitutes a grave public health problem in these countries. No medicine or vaccine is currently available, only prevention and rapid control of epidemics by isolation of disease victims can limit its spreading.

Melanoma is a particularly deadly form of skin cancer very resistant to treatment. Researchers at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute and the University of South Florida are testing a promising new therapy that prompts the immune system to aid in the fight against melanoma tumors.

Johns Hopkins researchers have found that two genes already known to control cell movement are also needed for proper cell division. They report their findings in the April issue of Developmental Cell.