A part of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which separates Washington state from Canada's British Columbia, is a potential "hot spot" for toxic harmful algal blooms affecting the Washington and British Columbia coasts.

More than half of all human proteins, as well as many important pharmaceutical agents, are glycoproteins, which means that they contain sugar components. In general, natural glycoproteins do not have a homogeneous sugar component. With modern purification techniques, it is practically impossible to isolate sufficient quantities of homogeneous glycoproteins for systematic biomedical studies. Synthesis in the lab is a good alternative—but also a very complex task. As they report in the journal Angewandte Chemie, scientists led by Carlo Unverzagt at the University of Bayreuth (Germany) have now successfully used a new strategy to synthesize ribonuclease C (RNase C), a glycosylated bovine pancreatic enzyme.

In Arctic Canada, a team of geologists from the University of Rochester has discovered a surprise fossil: a tropical, freshwater, Asian turtle.

All life — plants, animals, people — depends on peaceful coexistence with a swarm of microbial life that performs vital services from helping to convert food to energy to protection from disease.

Rajesh Gokhale has created a compound in his lab in India that stops tuberculosis in its tracks. In a test tube, the molecule hits four of the bacterium's crucial metabolic pathways at the same time, weakening and ultimately destroying the pathogen.