Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis are finding common ground between the shaping of the brain and the heart during embryonic development.

That clover necklace you make for your child could well be a ring of poison. That’s because some clovers have evolved genes that help the plant produce cyanide – to protect itself against little herbivores, such as snails, slugs and voles, that eat clover. Other clover plants that do not make cyanide are found in climates with colder temperatures. So, in picking your poison, er, clover, ecology and geography play important roles.

Picture a pretzel factory production line, with conveyer belts carrying the dough, formed into unbaked pretzels, down to the oven to be cooked.

An in vitro fertilization technique that can avoid multiple births appears to be effective for women older than 35, according to researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

An intricate three-way mating struggle first observed in a species of North American lizard has been discovered in a distant relative, the European common lizard. The two species are separated by 5,000 miles and 175 million years of evolution, yet they share behavioral and reproductive details right down to the gaudy colors of the males, according to new research published in the November issue of American Naturalist and now available online.

Newer ultrasound and magnetic resonance (MR) imaging tests yield encouraging initial results in diagnosing fibrosis (scarring) and cirrhosis of the liver, according to three studies in the October issue of the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.