Two laboratories at Penn State set out to show how an obscure undersea microbe metabolizes carbon monoxide into methane and vinegar. What they found was not merely a previously unknown biochemical process--their discovery also became the inspiration for a fundamental new theory of the origin of life on Earth, reconciling a long-contentious pair of prevailing theories. This new, "thermodynamic" theory of evolution improves upon both previous theories by proposing a central role for energy conservation during early evolution, based on a simple three-step biochemical mechanism.

Chemical knockoffs resembling a key thyroid-related hormone are, in certain cases, more effective than the real thing at activating the target receptor, says a new study conducted in part by researchers at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases

In a groundbreaking new study in the June issue of American Naturalist, Erika J. Edwards (Yale University and University of California, Santa Barbara) and Michael J. Donoghue (Yale University) explore how leafy, "normal" plants evolved into the leafless succulent cactus.

There is a push to document the biodiversity of the world within 25 years. However, the magnitude of this challenge is not well known, especially when it comes to vast and often inaccessible marine environments. To date, surveys of species diversity in the world's oceans have focused on adult organisms, but new research from Boston University has found that studying marine life in its larval phase with DNA barcoding is a valuable way to estimate biodiversity.

Sexual harassment is a burden that females of many species face, and some may go to extreme lengths to avoid it.

Cell and animal studies conducted jointly by scientists at Johns Hopkins, Yale and other institutions have uncovered at least one important contributor to the severe anemia that kills almost half of the 2 million people worldwide who die each year of malaria. The culprit is a protein cells make in response to inflammation called MIF, which appears to suppress red blood cell production in people whose red blood cells already are infected by malaria parasites.

c-myc, a gene commonly involved in cancer onset, has been found to have a role in the immune system's normal function according to a study published today in Blood. The surprising finding, by a Swiss research team led by investigators from the Lausanne Branch of the international Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR), showed that c-myc functions in the immune system's 'memory' of previous infections.

Coffee drinkers are familiar with the ring-shaped stains that result from spilled drops that have dried, in which the brown stain is not evenly distributed, but instead concentrated at the edge. Now, a team led by Gerard Wong, a professor of materials science and engineering, physics, and bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has found the same "coffee-ring" formation in drying drops of DNA.

In the past decade, the oyster population in New Hampshire's Great Bay estuary has plummeted by 90 percent, due to the 1995 arrival of the oyster disease MSX. The previous century saw a slower but equally devastating demise of oysters from exuberant overharvesting. "We have seen local extinction on some reefs," says Ray Grizzle, research associate professor at the University of New Hampshire's Jackson Estuarine Laboratory.

Female fish prefer brightly coloured males because they are easier to see and are in better shape concludes Dutch researcher Martine Maan following her study of fish speciation in the East African Lakes. Environmental variation subsequently leads to differences in preference and eventually to speciation.