Marine scientists working on Australia's Great Barrier Reef have uncovered evidence that baby fish, only millimetres long, manage to find their way to their home coral reef across miles of open sea by using their sense of smell.

Radiotherapy after breast conserving surgery for breast cancer reduces recurrence and prevents development of additional breast tumors in older women with early stage breast disease, according to a new study. Published in the March 1, 2007 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study suggests that women also benefit from the recommended five years of tamoxifen treatment for hormone responsive tumors. Among women over 65 and treated with breast conserving surgery, the risk of local or regional recurrence increased up to 3.5 times if they did not receive radiation after their surgery.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a novel computational image-forming technique for optical microscopy that can produce crisp, three-dimensional images from blurry, out-of-focus data.

Autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis occur when the immune system fails to regulate itself. But researchers have not known precisely where the molecular breakdowns responsible for such failures occur. Now, a team of scientists from the Whitehead Institute and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified a key set of genes that lie at the core of autoimmune disease, findings that may help scientists develop new methods for manipulating immune system activity.

The researchers found that TRPA1, a protein that helps transmit pain signals, is a direct sensor of reactive chemicals. "While many noxious and pungent compounds were known to activate this pain receptor, we discovered that they do so by directly and irreversibly binding to the cysteine amino acids of this protein," said Ardem Patapoutian, a Scripps Research scientist whose laboratory conducted the study. "Our study shows that TRPA1 activation is directly linked to chemical insult."

A motor protein called myosin X runs the main road of a developing neuron, delivering to its tip a receptor that enables it to communicate with other neurons, scientists say.

Scientists at UC Irvine have mapped fossil fuel air pollution in the United States by analyzing corn collected from nearly 70 locations nationwide.