When humans taste or smell, receptors unique to each nerve cell detect the chemical and send signals to the brain, where many cells process the message to understand what we are smelling or tasting. But a bacterium is just a single cell, and it must use many different receptors to sense and interpret everything around it.

Acid rain, the environmental consequence of burning fossil fuels, running factories and driving cars, has altered soils and reduced the number of sugar maple trees growing in the Northeast, according to a new study led by Cornell University researchers.

Using state-of-the-art gene therapy techniques, University of Pittsburgh investigators have successfully prevented the onset of elevated blood sugar, or hyperglycemia, in diabetes-prone mice by inserting a gene encoding for a cytokine -- a protein that stimulates or inhibits the proliferation or function of immune cells -- into their insulin-producing cells. According to the investigators, these findings, which are being presented at the American Society of Gene Therapy Annual Meeting in Baltimore, May 31 to June 4, have significant implications for the prevention of type 1 diabetes.

In a new partnership, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is working with the member countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to develop a series of environmental indicators for rice production in the region.