The International Polar Year (IPY) concluded in March 2009 with a tangible legacy in the form of a network of databases on marine biodiversity that will serve as clearinghouse for all biodiversity-related data gathered since the very first Antarctic research expeditions. The network gathers data describing the species themselves as well as information about their collection history, allowing scientists and conservationists to access the first rigorous census of Antarctic marine life. Created by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research's (SCAR), an inter-disciplinary committee of the International Council for Science, the Marine Biodiversity Information Network (SCAR-MarBIN) is a collaborative web portal that provides free and open access to information on Antarctic marine biodiversity (www.scarmarbin.be). The portal started as a major Belgian contribution to the IPY, but grew into an international collaborative effort, with hundreds of scientists from around the world joining forces to build this unique web-based tool, enabling the community to share and publish information that is critical for research but also for conservation purposes.

A new study published as the cover article for the April 2009 issue of The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) promises to give physicians new ways to reduce deadly responses to viral infections of the brain and spinal cord. In the report, scientists from Columbia University, NY, detail for the first time the chemical processes that star-shaped nerve cells, called astrocytes, use to handle invading viruses and to summon other immune cells to cause life-threatening inflammation.

A study at the University of Leeds has shown, for the first time, that C. elegans worms crawl and swim using the same gait, overturning the widely accepted belief that these two behaviours are completely different.

Although perhaps the greatest public health achievement of the 20th century was the disinfection of water, a recent study now shows that the chemicals used to purify the water we drink and use in swimming pools react with organic material in the water yielding toxic consequences.

Attaching an antimicrobial drug, which is activated by light, to a peptide that binds to bacteria and stops them making toxins, produced a "magic bullet" that was highly effective at killing the superbug, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

A tiny microbe can take electricity and directly convert carbon dioxide and water to methane, producing a portable energy source with a potentially neutral carbon footprint, according to a team of Penn State engineers.

Building on the idea of using DNA to link up nanoparticles - particles measuring mere billionths of a meter - scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have designed a molecular assembly line for predictable, high-precision nano-construction. Such reliable, reproducible nanofabrication is essential for exploiting the unique properties of nanoparticles in applications such as biological sensors and devices for converting sunlight to electricity. The work will be published online March 29, 2009, by Nature Materials.

Trichodesmium is unusual among marine microbes because it both "breathes" carbon dioxide like plants, while also taking nitrogen gas from the air and "fixing" it into a fertilizer of the seas.

In a genetic engineering breakthrough that could help everyone from bed-ridden patients to elite athletes, a team of American researchers—including 2007 Nobel Prize winner Mario R. Capecchi—have created a "switch" that allows mutations or light signals to be turned on in muscle stem cells to monitor muscle regeneration in a living mammal. For humans, this work could lead to a genetic switch, or drug, that allows people to grow new muscle cells to replace those that are damaged, worn out, or not working for other reasons (e.g., muscular dystrophy). In addition, this same discovery also gives researchers a new tool for the study of difficult-to-treat muscle cancers. The full report containing details of this advance is available online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org).

Parents and school nurses take note. Lice are a familiar nuisance around the world and vectors of serious diseases, such as epidemic typhus, in developing regions. New research indicates that lice may actually be quite unique in the animal world. In a study published online in Genome Research (www.genome.org), scientists have analyzed the mitochondrial genome of the human body louse and discovered that it is fragmented into many pieces – a remarkable finding in animals that will surely spark discussion about how it evolved and what advantages it might confer.

February's brutal chimpanzee attack, during which a pet chimp inflicted devastating injuries on a Connecticut woman, was a stark reminder that chimps are much stronger than humans—as much as four-times stronger, some researchers believe. But what is it that makes our closest primate cousins so much stronger than we are? One possible explanation is that great apes simply have more powerful muscles. Indeed, biologists have uncovered differences in muscle architecture between chimpanzees and humans. But evolutionary biologist Alan Walker, a professor at Penn State University, thinks muscles may only be part of the story.

National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers have identified a gene that suppresses tumor growth in melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. The finding is reported today in the journal Nature Genetics as part of a systematic genetic analysis of a group of enzymes implicated in skin cancer and many other types of cancer.

Video games that involve high levels of action, such as first-person-shooter games, increase a player's real-world vision, according to research in today's Nature Neuroscience

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) tend to stare at people's mouths rather than their eyes. Now, an NIH-funded study in 2-year-olds with the social deficit disorder suggests why they might find mouths so attractive: lip-sync—the exact match of lip motion and speech sound. Such audiovisual synchrony preoccupied toddlers who have autism, while their unaffected peers focused on socially meaningful movements of the human body, such as gestures and facial expressions.

Soldiers who survive severe injuries on battlefields such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan can be at risk from developing infections of their wounds with multidrug resistant bacteria. The potentially lethal microbes include superbugs such as methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella species and Escherichia coli.

Bacteria are single cell organisms with no nervous system or brain. So how do individual bacterial cells living as part of a complex community called a biofilm "decide" between different physiological processes (such as movement or producing the "glue" that forms the biofilm)?

Drug-resistant forms of HIV can be spread between individuals who have not received anti-retroviral treatment, according to Professor Deenan Pillay from University College, London and the Health Protection Agency, speaking at the Society for General Microbiology meeting at Harrogate today, (Monday 30 March).

The discovery of a large number of slow-growing Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria, which cause tuberculosis (TB), in the lungs of TB patients could be an important step forward in the design of new anti-TB drugs.

Considerably more people than previously believed are allergic to the most common fragrance ingredient used in shampoos, conditioners and soap. A thesis presented at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden found that over 5% of those who underwent patch testing were allergic to the air oxidized form of the fragrance ingredient linalool.

The study's findings appear to echo the insect worlds portrayed in the animated films Antz and Bee Movie, in which the characters live in rigidly conformist societies.

New research published by a Queen's University Belfast academic has shown that crabs not only suffer pain but that they retain a memory of it.

"Broken heart syndrome" is still a mystery to many in the medical community, but new data from researchers at The Miriam Hospital may shed some light on the clinical characteristics and outcomes of this relatively rare, life-threatening condition.

Looking for a better treatment for the autoimmune disease myasthenia gravis, researchers have found that a protein in tick saliva shows promise in limiting the severity of the disease in an animal model in a study published in the Annals of Neurology.

Two University of Rhode Island scientists have revealed how a cancer causing protein is regulated by reactive oxygen species (ROS) -- a type of stress signal. Their findings provide new insight into how this protein normally behaves in human cells and may help in the design of drugs targeting specific cancers.

Like doctors making house calls, some DNA repair enzymes can relocate to the part of the cell that needs their help, a collaborative team of scientists at Emory University School of Medicine has found.

In an analysis1 of commercially available mineral waters, the researchers found evidence of estrogenic compounds leaching out of the plastic packaging into the water. What's more, these chemicals are potent in vivo and result in an increased development of embryos in the New Zealand mud snail. These findings, which show for the first time that substances leaching out of plastic food packaging materials act as functional estrogens, are published in Springer's journal Environmental Science and Pollution Research.

The impact fish stocking has on aquatic insects in mountain lakes can be rapidly reversed by removing non-native trout, according to a study completed by U.S. Forest Service and University of California, Davis, scientists.

While physical exercise has been shown to trigger migraine headaches among sufferers, a new study describes an exercise program that is well tolerated by patients. The findings show that the program decreased the frequency of headaches and improved quality of life. The study is published in Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain.

Researchers have unveiled the evolutionary origin of the different chromosomal architectures found in three species of Agrobacterium. A comprehensive comparison of the Agrobacterium sequence information with the genome sequences of other bacteria suggests a general model for how second chromosomes are formed in bacteria.*

Certain bacteria have learned to manipulate the proportion of females and males in insect populations. Now Uppsala University researchers have mapped the entire genome of a bacterium that infects a close relative of the fruit fly. The findings, published in PNAS, reveal extremely high frequencies of gene exchange within this group of bacteria. In the future it is hoped that it will be possible to use sex-manipulating bacteria as environmentally friendly pesticides against harmful insects.

Current research describes a new method to track the development of autoimmune diseases before the onset of symptoms. The related report by Zangani et al, "Tracking early autoimmune disease by bioluminescent imaging of NF-κB activation reveals pathology in multiple organ systems," appears in the April 2009 issue of The American Journal of Pathology.

Researchers led by a Texas A&M University professor have discovered coral beds off the coast of Hawaii that are more than 4,200 years old, making them among the oldest living creatures on Earth.

In contrast to women, men are fertile throughout life, but research at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, has now shown that a fertilising sperm can get help from the egg to rejuvenate. The result is an important step towards future stem cell therapy.

Scientists have discovered that individual neurons in the monkey hippocampus can signal information about the outcome of experimental trials during an associative learning task. The research, published by Cell Press in the March 26th issue of the journal Neuron, furthers our understanding of outcome-selective cells in the primate brain and provides important insight into how information about trial outcomes may influence learning.

University of Michigan ecologists and their colleagues have answered a question that has puzzled biologists for more than a century: What is the main factor that determines a lizard's ability to shed its tail when predators attack?

Phantom limbs, often described after amputation, are also experienced as an extra limb in patients who are paralyzed on one side following a stroke. Referred to as supernumerary phantom limb (SPL), patients can usually perceive these limbs as a vivid somatosensory presence of an extra limb, but generally cannot see or intentionally move them. In some unusual cases, however, patients have reported seeing their phantom limb or feeling objects or body parts with it, which indicates that multiple areas of the brain may be involved in SPLs.

Conserving Australia's most endangered snake might mean lighting more bush fires, ecologists have proposed.

Until now, Triceratops was thought to be unusual among its ceratopsid relatives. While many ceratopsids—a common group of herbivorous dinosaurs that lived toward the end of the Cretaceous—have been found in enormous bonebed deposits of multiple individuals, all known Triceratops (over 50 in total) fossils have been solitary individuals. But a new discovery of a jumble of at least three juveniles the badlands of the north-central United States suggests that the three-horned dinosaurs were not only social animals, but may have exhibited unique gregarious groupings of juveniles.

Deep-sea corals from about 400 meters off the coast of the Hawaiian Islands are much older than once believed and some may be the oldest living marine organisms known to man.

A blind fish that has evolved a unique technique for sensing motion may inspire a new generation of sensors that perform better than current active sonar.