Young songbirds babble before they can mimic an adult’s song, much like their human counterparts. Now, in work that offers insights into how birds—and perhaps people—learn new behaviors, MIT scientists have found that immature and adult birdsongs are driven by two separate brain pathways, rather than one pathway that slowly matures.

Mean dissolved oxygen concentrations in the world's oceans at a depth of 400 meters (1,312 feet) with blue contours representing the lowest concentrations. Boxed areas represent ocean regions analyzed in the study. Credit: AAAS/Science An international team of physical oceanographers including a researcher from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has discovered that oxygen-poor regions of tropical oceans are expanding as the oceans warm, limiting the areas in which predatory fishes and other marine organisms can live or enter in search of food.

Male seahorses are nature’s real-life Mr. Moms – they take fathering to a whole new level: Pregnancy.

A report publishing online on May 1st in the journal Current Biology, a publication of Cell Press, provides the first evidence of an animal using ultraviolet B (UVB) rays to communicate with other members of its species.

Scientists at City of Hope and the California Department of Public Health have developed a new ultrasensitive assay to detect botulinum neurotoxin. The toxin is one of the most poisonous substances known that can cause life-threatening disease, and is considered a major potential bioterrorism threat agent. The research team’s work is published today in the online journal PLoS ONE (http://www.plosone.org/doi/pone.0002041).

Using classroom, hands-on activities can help instructors to communicate difficult scientific concepts and stimulate student thinking. Despite its importance, the diversity in soil microbes can conceptually be difficult to teach, especially in natural resource classrooms composed primarily of undergraduates who have had little exposure to microbiology. That's where the candy comes into play.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have discovered how some bacteria can survive antibiotic treatment by turning on resistance mechanisms when exposed to the drugs. The findings, published in the April 24 issue of the journal Molecular Cell, could lead to more effective antibiotics to treat a variety of infections.

Human monoclonal antibodies (mAbs)--highly specific, identical, infection-fighting proteins produced in large quantities in the lab in cell lines that are derived from a single cell--against influenza can be rapidly produced in the lab, according to a new report from scientists supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Using cells drawn from volunteers inoculated with seasonal influenza vaccine, the investigators made influenza-specific mAbs in just a few weeks rather than the typical two to three months. The new technique could potentially be used to rapidly create mAbs for a range of uses, the team says.

A study published in the May 1 issue of the journal SLEEP is the first attempt to quantify the strength of the cross-sectional relationships between duration of sleep and obesity in both children and adults. Cross-sectional studies from around the world show a consistent increased risk of obesity among short sleepers in children and adults, the study found.

To spotlight the widespread importance of evolution, a group of renowned international scientists have launched a scientific journal devoted to using evolutionary biology to tackle the world's major biological crises. The new journal, titled Evolutionary Applications publishes articles that use evolution to address pressing issues such as climate change, endangered species, food safety, infectious diseases, and invasive species.

University of Iowa researchers have succeeded in wiping out established biofilms of Staphylococcus aureus (staph) by hijacking one of the bacteria's own regulatory systems. Although the discovery is not ready for clinical application, the findings offer insight into a dispersal mechanism for staph biofilms and might help identify therapeutic targets.

A nationwide team of researchers, funded in part by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has produced the first sequence-based map of large-scale structural variation across the human genome. The work, published today in the journal Nature, provides a starting point to examine how such DNA variation contributes to human health and disease.

Tumor cells living in the cross hairs of radiation or chemotherapy may be able to escape death because their self-destruct mechanisms are jammed, say University of Florida scientists writing in a recent issue of Developmental Cell.