Editor : Originally, HIV-1 was named HTLV-III. These 2 new viruses are part of the same family, but don't panic just yet; HTLV-I doesn't cause immunodeficiency like HIV-1. However, some scientists suggest that it may be implicated in the development of an arthritis-like syndrome, among other things.

A team of researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Army Health Research Center (CRESAR) in Cameroon have discovered two new retroviruses among central Africans who hunt nonhuman primates. The viruses, which have been named Human T-lymphotropic Virus types 3 and 4 (HTLV-3 and HTLV-4), belong to a genus of viruses known to spread and cause serious illness in humans. The researchers believe the findings demonstrate the need to regularly survey those human populations known to be in contact with animals for new infectious diseases emerging from animals. The study, which was first reported at the 12th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, is now published in the May 16, 2005, Online Early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A recently published article in Environmental Microbiology reveals that indigenous microbiota of the Galician shore is readily able to degrade crude oil. Scientists from the Estación Experimental del Zaidín (Spanish Council for Research, CSIC) in Granada investigated in situ crude oil degradation after the Prestige oil spill in November 2002.

Have you seen this toad? Canadian toad populations are on the decline in Alberta.A University of Alberta researcher is strapping tiny backpacks to toads in an effort to discover why one species is in serious decline.

Connie Browne, a PhD student in the Department of Biological Sciences, is spending this summer haunting the ponds and sloughs in northern Alberta, Canada, using tiny radio transmitter backpacks to track Canadian and Western toads.

Green tea appears to protect against cancer by affecting a "promiscuous" protein that pharmaceutical experts are already targeting in an effort to develop a new drug to stop the disease, scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center have found. The research, which buttresses beliefs about the health benefits of green tea with solid scientific evidence, has been cited as part of the best doctoral thesis produced by a student at the university's School of Medicine and Dentistry this year.

Scientists at four major genomics and plant pathology laboratories in China have collaborated on a project to characterize the causative agent of "black rot" disease, which is the most serious disease of vegetable crops worldwide. Their study, which represents the largest comparative and functional genomics screen for a plant or animal bacterial pathogen to date, is published online today in the journal Genome Research.

The bizarre plates and spikes that lined the backbones of the long-extinct stegosaurs were probably extreme examples of the often elaborate and colorful displays developed by animals to recognize fellow members of their species, according to an international team of paleontologists.

The team's analysis of stegosaur plates lends support to a growing consensus among paleontologists that the weird adornments of many dinosaurs - the horns of triceratops, the helmet-like domes of the pachycephalosaurs, and the crests of the duck-billed hadrosaurs - likely served no function other than to differentiate species, akin to birds' colorful feather ornamentation.

Engineers at The University of Texas at Austin have found a way to modify a plastic to anchor molecules that promote nerve regeneration, blood vessel growth or other biological processes.

In the study led by Dr. Christine Schmidt, the researchers identified a piece of protein from among a billion candidates that could perform the unusual feat of attaching to polypyrrole, a synthetic polymer (plastic) that conducts electricity and has shown promise in biomedical applications. When the protein piece, or peptide, was linked to a smaller protein piece that human cells like to attach to, polypyrrole gained the ability to attach to cells grown in flasks in the laboratory.

Chronic inflammation is linked to the development of certain types of cancer, but mechanisms mediating inflammation during premalignancy are not well understood. A new research study published in the May issue of Cancer Cell identifies B lymphocytes as important regulators of premalignancy associated with chronic inflammation. The results suggest that drugs targeted against B lymphocytes or recruitment of innate immune cells toward premalignant tissue may represent a viable strategy to protect against the development of cancer in tissues identified as "at risk" due to chronic inflammation.

The final meeting of the United Nations Forum on Forests, now under way, could result in firm commitments to protect the world's forests or, some environmentalists worry, merely an agreement to continue negotiations.

One member of the U.S. delegation to the U.N. forum is international environmental policy expert Matthew Auer, who remains guardedly optimistic that the two-week negotiation will conclude with one or more concrete outcomes, such as a fund to help international organizations and countries protect the world's forests. The forum is scheduled to meet May 16 to 27 at U.N. Headquarters in Manhattan.