The global trade in frog legs for human consumption is threatening their extinction, according to a new study by an international team including University of Adelaide researchers.

Mice from a strain that ordinarily develops systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), but bred with a deficiency in receptor for the protein Interleukin 21, stayed healthy and exhibited none of the symptoms of the disease, researchers at The Jackson Laboratory and National Institutes of Health report.

Scientists have developed a ground-breaking method for testing the quality of a sperm before it is used in IVF and increase the chances of conception.

The fossil of a lizard-like New Zealand reptile has been identified by a team of scientists from UCL (University College London), University of Adelaide, and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. The fossil, dating back 18 million years, has triggered fresh arguments over whether the continent was fully submerged some 25 million years ago.

A four-week expedition to explore the deep ocean south-west of Tasmania has revealed new species of animals and more evidence of impacts of increasing carbon dioxide on deep-sea corals.

An international team of researchers, with the participation of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and CREAF, has achieved to resolve fundamental questions related to the behaviour of ants. Researchers discovered how some species that successfully invade large extensions of land have an unusual way of doing so: they cooperate with other colonies to form a supercolony. Researchers alert that a plague of this type of ant could turn into a global problem. The research, the first of its kind, has been published in the journal PLoS ONE.

Early attempts at islet cell transplantation to treat diabetes date to the nineteenth century, decades before the discovery of insulin in the 1930s. In recent years, research has focused on the anatomical sites best suited for hosting transplanted islet cells. Experimental sites have included the spleen, liver, peritoneal cavity, omentum, subcutaneous tissues and gastric submucosa. However, many transplant attempts at a variety of anatomical sites have failed because of a variety of complications.

Most of the rabies virus circulating in dogs in western and central Africa comes from a common ancestor introduced to the continent around 200 years ago, probably by European colonialists. In the current issue of Journal of General Virology a team of scientists from Africa, USA and France report that within this common ancestry there are distinct subspecies at country level and that there is only limited movement of virus between localities. These factors mean that, if neighbouring countries collaborate, a progressive strategy to eliminate rabies from this area of sub-Saharan Africa is possible.

For the brain to achieve its intricate functions such as perception, action, attention and decision making, neural regions have to work together yet still retain their specialized roles. Excess or lack of timely coordination between brain areas lies at the core of a number of psychiatric and neurological disorders such as epilepsy, schizophrenia, autism, Parkinson's disease, sleep disorders and depression. How the brain is coordinated is a complex and difficult problem in need of new theoretical insights as well as new methods of investigation.

Whether condoms or abstinence, most efforts to prevent sexually transmitted diseases have a common logic: keep the pathogen out of your body altogether. While this approach is certainly reasonable enough, it doesn't help the countless people worldwide who, for a number of reasons, are not in a position to control their sexual circumstances.