A male specimen of the newly-discovered olive-backed forest robin is carefully examined in the hand of Brian Schmidt, the Smithsonian ornithologist who discovered the species. Scientists at the Smithsonian Institution have discovered a new species of bird in Gabon, Africa, that was, until now, unknown to the scientific community. Their findings were published in the international science journal Zootaxa today, Aug. 15.

Parrots have a big brain and are also one of the most evolutionarily diversified bird clades. Ever since Darwin, evolutionary biologists have wondered why some lineages have diversified more than others. A classical explanation is that a higher rate of diversification reflects increased ecological opportunities that led to a rapid adaptive radiation of a clade. A textbook example is Darwin finches from Galapagos, whose ancestor colonized a competitors-free archipelago and rapidly radiated in 13 species, each one adapted to use the food resources in a different way. This and other examples have led some to think that the progenitors of the major evolutionary radiations are those that happened to be in the right place and at the right time to take advantage of ecological opportunities. However, is it possible that biological diversification not only depends on the properties of the environment an ancestral species finds itself in, but also on the features of the species itself? Now a study supports this possibility, suggesting that possessing a large brain might have facilitated the evolutionary diversification of some avian lineages.

Michigan State University scientists, armed with a half-million-dollar federal grant, are creating an easily accessible, Web-based genomic database of information on crops that can be used to make ethanol.

When a cell begins to multiply in a dangerously abnormal way, a series of death signals trigger it to self-destruct before it turns cancerous. Now, in research to appear in the August 15 issue of Genes & Development, Rockefeller University scientists have figured out a way in mice to amplify the signals that tell these precancerous cells to die. The trick: Inactivating a protein that normally helps cells to avoid self-destruction.

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have developed a novel way to churn out large quantities of drugs, including antiplaque toothpaste additives, antibiotics, nicotine, and even morphine, using mini biofactories--in yeast.