By applying electrical currents across the heads of people while they walk, researchers have improved our understanding of how our vestibular system helps us maintain upright posture; at the same time, the researchers found that the stimulus could be applied in a way that allowed a person who was walking straight ahead to be steered by "remote control" without her balance being affected. The findings are reported by Richard Fitzpatrick and Jane E. Butler of the Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute and the University of New South Wales, Australia, and Brian L. Day of University College London in the August 8th issue of Current Biology, published by Cell Press.

No matter how you slice it, the freshwater planarian possesses an amazing ability to regenerate lost body parts. Chop one into pieces, and each piece can grow into a complete planarian. The flatworm relies upon a population of stem cells to accomplish this remarkable feat; recent work sheds light on how planarians maintain these stem cells throughout their lives.

University of Utah scientists have shown how evolution works by reversing the process, reconstructing a 530-million-year-old gene by combining key portions of two modern mouse genes that descended from the archaic gene.

How life takes shape is a mystery. Butterfly or baby, cells organize themselves into tissues, tissues form organs, organs become organisms. Over and over, patterns emerge in all living creatures. Spiders get eight legs. Leopards get spots. Every nautilus is encased in an elegant spiral shell.

American bison graze in Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota.A University of Washington researcher has devised a way to use the fossil teeth of ancient bison as a tool to reconstruct historic climate and vegetation changes in America's breadbasket, the Great Plains.

When pregnant, dominant female meerkats subject their subordinates to escalating aggression and temporary eviction causing them to become overly stressed and as a result infertile, a new study finds.

As 3,000 scientists arrive in Memphis, Tennessee for the Ecological Society of America's 91st Annual Meeting, many ecologists working in the state will be presenting the results of their research from the region. Below, a few of the highlights:

Deficiencies of micronutrients such as Iron and Zinc commonly limit plant growth and crop yields. Dartmouth Professor Mary Lou Guerinot is conducting research to better understand the mechanisms of micronutrient uptake, distribution and regulation.

A team led by Duke University Medical Center researchers has discovered two proteins in the taste buds on the surface of the tongue that are responsible for detecting sour tastes.

A new kind of drug to fight bird flu that will not suffer from the same kind of resistance problems as current treatments should begin clinical trials within the next three years, thanks to a new research grant.