Babies born preterm were more than twice as likely to have major birth defects as full-term infants, according to a new analysis of nearly 7 million U.S. live births published online this week in the Springer journal Maternal and Child Health Journal.

Scientists have discovered the first dinosaur tracks on the Arabian Peninsula. In this week’s issue of the journal PLoS ONE, they report evidence of a large ornithopod dinosaur, as well as a herd of 11 sauropods walking along a Mesozoic coastal mudflat in what is now the Republic of Yemen.

Prior to the advent of large sequence datasets, it was assumed that innovation and divergence at the morphological and physiological level would be easily explained at the molecular level. Molecular explanations for physiological adaptations have, however, been rare. In a study published in PLoS ONE on Wednesday, May 21, Pollock and colleagues provide evidence that major macroevolutionary changes in snakes (e.g., physiological and metabolic adaptations and venom evolution) have been accompanied by massive functional redesign of core metabolic proteins.

Rats housed in standard conditions show a stronger response to the loss of an expected food reward than those housed in enriched conditions, perhaps indicating a more negative emotional state, according to new research by scientists at Bristol University Veterinary School, published in this week's issue of Royal Society Biology Letters.

Reports of children becoming unconscious after swallowing Aqua Dots beads led to a voluntary recall of the product in November 2007. At the time, it was widely reported that the potentially toxic chemical 1,4-butanediol (BD) had been used in place of the benign but more expensive 1,5-pentanediol (PD) in the manufacture of the beads.

New imaging research shows that brain activity differs in sleep-deprived and well-rested people. The study, in the May 21 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, shows that individuals who are sleep-deprived experience periods of near-normal brain function, but these periods are interspersed with severe drops in attention and visual processing.

Brain cells known as neurons process information by joining into complex networks, transmitting signals to each other across junctions called synapses. But “neurons don’t just connect to other neurons,” emphasizes Z. Josh Huang, Ph.D., “in a lot of cases, they connect to very specific partners, at particular spots.”