An international research team has discovered that the size of Amazon forest reserves is yet more important than previously thought. Their findings, to be published this week (January 12th) in the journal Science, underscore the importance of protecting the Amazon in large stretches of primary forest.

The plant with the world's largest flower -- typically a full meter across, with a bud the size of a basketball -- evolved from a family of plants whose blossoms are nearly all tiny, botanists write this week in the journal Science. Their genetic analysis of rafflesia reveals that it is closely related to a family that includes poinsettias, the trees that produce natural rubber, castor oil plants, and the tropical root crop cassava.

The recent discovery that a mutant "clock" gene made some people "early to bed and early to rise," a condition known as familial advanced sleep phase syndrome (FASPS), offered one of the first glimpses into the genetic basis of sleep in humans. Now, researchers report in the Jan. 12, 2007 issue of the journal Cell, published by Cell Press, new evidence that helps to explain just how their bodies' natural alarm clocks get set to such an early wake-up time.