Reporting in Biology Letters, Steve Brusatte, Professor Michael Benton, and colleagues at the University of Bristol show that dinosaurs did not proliferate immediately after they originated, but that their rise was a slow and complicated event, and driven by two mass extinctions.

Japanese research group led by Prof Makoto Tominaga and Dr Takaaki Sokabe, National Institute for Physiological Sciences (NIPS), Japan, found that a small fly, drosophila, has a receptor for noxious heat. The research group reports their finding in Journal of Neuroscience published on Oct 1, 2008.

A link between reduced levels of the 'stress hormone' cortisol and antisocial behaviour in male adolescents has been discovered by a research team at the University of Cambridge.

Researchers have identified two new genes – and confirmed the role of a third gene – associated with increased risk of higher levels of uric acid in the blood, which can lead to gout, a common, painful form of arthritis. Combined, the three genetic variations were associated with up to a 40-fold increased risk in developing gout. The findings suggest that genetic testing could one day be used to identify individuals at risk for gout before symptoms develop, as well as determine who might benefit from medications to prevent the development of gout.

When a cell's chromosomes lose their ends, the cell usually kills itself to stem the genetic damage. But University of Utah biologists discovered how those cells can evade suicide and start down the path to cancer.