An international team of scientists is calling for a targeted global conservation effort to preserve seagrasses and their ecological services for the world’s coastal ecosystems, according to an article published in the December issue of Bioscience, the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS).

An understanding of the evolutionary dynamics of the influenza virus determines scientists’ ability to survey and control the virus. In a new study, published online in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens, Dr. Eddie C. Holmes of the Department of Biology at Pennsylvania State University and colleagues at the National Institutes of Health, the Wordsworth Center and the Institute for Genomic Research used genomic analysis to investigate the evolutionary properties of the H3N2 subtype of human influenza A virus.

Scientists have combined two molecules that occur naturally in blood to engineer a molecular complex that uses solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, says research published today in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

New mathematical studies of the interactions between oscillating biological populations may shed light on some of the toughest questions in ecology, including the number and types of species in an ecosystem, according to an article in the December 2006 issue of BioScience. The article, by John Vandermeer of the University of Michigan, shows how extensions of established theory suggest that many animal and plant populations oscillate in synchrony because of interactions such as predation and competition. Such synchronization can have far-reaching effects. Vandermeer suggests that several well-known biological conundrums, such as the higher-than-expected diversity of plankton in aquatic ecosystems, may be explained this way.

A study led by University of California, San Diego biologists shows that invasive Argentine ants appear to use genetic differences to distinguish friend from foe, a finding that helps to explain why these ants form enormous colonies in California.

Last month, Roger Kornberg of Stanford University won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his efforts to unravel the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription, in which enzymes give “voice” to DNA by copying it into the RNA molecules that serve as templates for protein in organisms from yeast to humans. Now, Kornberg and his colleagues report in the December 1, 2006 issue of the journal Cell, published by Cell Press, new structures that reveal another critical piece of the puzzle: how the so-called polymerase II enzyme discriminates among potential RNA building blocks to ensure the characteristic accuracy of the process.

Male fruit flies are smaller and darker than female flies. The hair-like bristles on their forelegs are shorter, thicker. Their sexual equipment, of course, is different, too.

Scientists at Duke University Medical Center have visualized in a living animal how cells use a critical biological process to dice and splice genetic material to create unique and varied proteins.

A team of researchers at UCSF is seeking young women to participate in the first U.S. study of the safety of a new a vaginal gel designed to prevent herpes and HIV infection.