New research shows that a protein made by a cancer virus causes infected immune cells to cling to other immune cells, enabling the virus to spread.

Researchers have long wondered how nuclear pores – the all-important channels that control the flow of information in and out of a cell's nucleus – double in number to prepare for the split to come when a cell divides. Now, for the first time, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies watched as new funnel-like pore structures formed from scratch, and inserted themselves into the nuclear membrane.

When 10,000 honeybees fly the coop to hunt for a new home, usually a tree cavity, they have a unique method of deciding which site is right: With great efficiency they narrow down the options and minimize their bad decisions.

Cellulose--a fibrous molecule found in all plants--is the most abundant biological material on Earth. It is also a favored target of renewable, plant-based biofuels research. Despite overwhelming interest, scientists know relatively little about how plant cells synthesize individual cellulose fibers.

Researchers believe they have found a way to change the action of 60 percent of currently available medications, in some cases making them many times more effective, according to an article published in the April 21 edition of the journal Science. The discovery has the potential to improve treatments for diseases including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, depression and arthritis. The study describes a new way to manipulate perhaps the most important signaling mechanism in human cells: G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs).

Frogs and lots of them are being discovered in the Southeast Asia nation of Lao PDR, according to the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society, which says that six new frog species have been found by scientists over a two-year period.

The Eureka E! 2692 Molecular Tests project has developed a simple, fast and easy-to-apply test to assess the robustness of the immune system in poultry. The test can be performed in two days on blood samples from poultry houses, using equipment already available in poultry diagnostic laboratories. Current immune system tests are imprecise, expensive and take weeks – providing information too late to be useful. Combining this test with new immune-system boosting drugs would improve poultry welfare, and result in cheaper and better quality poultry products for European consumers.

In 2005, 46 regional Ministers of Health in Africa declared that a dramatic rise in tuberculosis (TB) cases was cause for emergency. In some African countries, annual TB case notifications have increased as much as four-fold over the past 15 years. The main culprit? The emergence of HIV. When individuals are infected with both HIV and TB, they are more likely to progress from latent TB infection to active TB.

Fast tracking the healing process for common ear infections will be the focus of ground-breaking research by WA's Lions Ear and Hearing Institute (LEHI).

Researchers here have cracked the site and the stages of development for the last major set of human immune cells.

The complete sequencing of human chromosome 17 and mouse chromosome 11 offers unique insights into the evolution of the genome of higher mammals, said a Baylor College of Medicine researcher who participated in this effort reported in today's issue of the journal Nature.