This figure shows the capsid, or outer shell, of a virus called bacteriophage T4.New findings in research led by Purdue University biologists provide further evidence that the protein envelope protecting DNA in viruses evolved billions of years ago from a common ancestor and uses the same basic protein "fold" to construct the critical outer shell.

The most recent findings, which appear in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that the T4 virus has a similar protein fold in its outer shell, or capsid, as another virus called HK97.

The protein fold of the viral envelope is crucial for the assembly of the capsid, which protects DNA vital to a virus' ability to infect host organisms and reproduce. The T4 and HK97 viruses are called bacteriophages because they infect bacteria.

A team of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute and the University of Wisconsin have demonstrated a new way of fighting antibiotic resistance: by stopping evolution.

In the June issue of the open-access journal PloS Biology, the team describes how a protein called LexA in the bacterium Escherichia coli promotes mutations and helps the pathogen evolve resistance to antibiotics. The scientists also show that E. coli evolution could be halted in its tracks by subjecting the bacteria to compounds that block LexA. Interfering with this protein renders the bacteria unable to evolve resistance to the common antibiotics ciprofloxacin and rifampicin.

"If you inhibit this pathway, the bacteria cannot evolve," says Scripps Research Assistant Professor Floyd Romesberg, Ph.D., who led the study.

Plague, a bacterium that ravaged Europe in the Middle Ages and is today one of the most feared potential agents of bio-terrorism, may have met its match, according to Wake Forest University School of Medicine scientists.

In mammals, sperm from the male determines the sex of the offspring. In birds, however, it is the female's sex chromosome that determines offspring sex. Now, Cornell University researchers think they understand the mechanism that several bird species use to bias the sex ratios of their offspring toward female.

Scientists have uncovered a new method the immune system uses to label foreign invaders as targets to be attacked. Researchers showed that the immune system can brand foreign proteins by chemically modifying their structure, and that these modifications increased the chances that cells known as lymphocytes would recognize the trespassers and attack them.

A study led by Mayo Clinic researchers and conducted by the North Central Cancer Treatment Group (NCCTG) reports that a new "smart" drug treatment for an incurable form of recurrent brain cancer slowed tumor growth in more than one-third of the 65 adult patients who tried it. The same research team also developed a screening technique to help predict which patients will respond best to this treatment.

The only sugar beets growing in Texas are in the laboratory. But those few plants are getting to the root of problems throughout the sugar beet industry.

The sugar beet industry moved out of Texas in 1997 after the close of the processing plant at Hereford. But the growing research program within Texas Agricultural Experiment Station's plant pathology lab here didn't die.

Researchers have found a gene they suspect plays an important role in triggering the blight that wiped out Ireland's potato crops a century-and-a-half ago.

And the pathogen that contains this gene still causes massive amounts of agricultural damage throughout the modern world– on the order of billions of dollars each year.

The scientists describe the gene, called Avr3a, in a study that appears online in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A new book, Biological Weapons Defense: Infectious Disease and Counterbioterrorism, deals with the intentional causality of disease. Published by Humana Press, this text is also available in e-Book. Many of the contributors come from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), the nation's premier biodefense laboratory.

IBM and Indigo BioSystems, Inc. today announced a collaboration to host a global warehouse capable of storing raw human proteomics data. The warehouse, based on Indigo BioSystems' True Blue Archive technology, is specifically designed to reliably capture and store Life Sciences research data from a wide variety of instruments. The result is a public database of information designed to help global researchers reduce time spent and costs by re-mining existing data to develop new conclusions. This work is part of a worldwide community effort.

Chemical communication within insect species is often much more sophisticated than expected. When aphids are attacked by predators such as ladybird beetles, they release an alarm pheromone, (E)-â-farnesene, that has long been known to cause other aphids to walk around or drop from the plant.