Fossils discovered in the oft-painted arroyos of northern New Mexico show for the first time that dinosaurs and their non-dinosaur ancestors lived side by side for tens of millions of years, disproving the notion that dinosaurs rapidly replaced their supposedly outmoded predecessors.

Instead of immutable proprietary software, any species’ genetic information resembles open source code that is constantly tweaked and optimized to meet the users’ specific needs. But which parts of the code have withstood the test of time and which parts have undergone rapid evolutionary change has been difficult to assess.

A protein that is largely absent in one type of skin cancer protects an important gene in a cell's defense against harmful mutations from being silenced, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report in the July 20 edition of Molecular Cell.

In order for the B cells of the immune system to identify and fight disease pathogens, they produce a protein called activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID). Once a B cell is activated by the presence of a disease pathogen, it begins to make AID which directs and strengthens the B cells’ response to the infection by mutating the antibodies produced by the B cells.