Scientists studying the widespread symbiotic bacteria Wolbachia have long been interested in its ability to proliferate. One way it does this is by hijacking sperm of its insect hosts and genetically tricking them to bear more infected females, the only sex that transmits the bacteria. Now, a new study from the MBL (Marine Biological Laboratory), published in the May 18 issue of PLoS Pathogens, demonstrates that a virus common to Wolbachia cells may be a key inhibitor of the cellular process that allows Wolbachia to manipulate insect reproduction.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego and three other institutions have described for the first time a web of inter-related responses that cells use to avoid becoming diseased or cancerous after being exposed to a powerful chemical mutagen. The group led by UCSD bioengineering professor Trey Ideker describe in the May 19 issue of Science an elaborate system of gene control that is triggered by chemical damage to DNA.

A gene first identified in connection with a rare disease in which patients develop multiple, benign skin tumors may be a more general player in cancers found throughout the body, according to a report in the May 19, 2006 Cell.

In the 1990s, the notion of "six degrees of separation" emphasized human linkages that connected people around the world.

Scientists at Schepens Eye Research Institute, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, are the first to discover a switch inside blood vessel cells that controls angiogenesis (new blood vessel growth). The switch, they learned, is turned on and off by the balance between two enzymes (known as PI3K and PLCg) that compete for the use of the same lipid membrane to fulfill opposite missions, growth and regression, respectively. This finding could lead to new, more targeted drugs for diseases such as cancer, diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration. The study, titled "Regulating angiogenesis at the level of PtdIns-4,5P2," is published in the current issue of The EMBO Journal (May 17).

Is that salt marsh healthy? To answer this, Sea Grant biologists are cracking open common marsh snails and counting parasitic worms. Their claim: the more parasites, the healthier the marsh.