It was long believed that conception does not involve a meeting of equals. The egg is a relatively large, impressive biological factory compared with the tiny sperm, which delivers to the egg one copy of the father's genes. However, a new study from Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah reveals that the father's sperm delivers much more complex genetic material than previously thought. The findings could lead to a diagnostic test to help couples deal with infertility.

A novel bacterium that has been trapped more than three kilometres under glacial ice in Greenland for over 120 000 years, may hold clues as to what life forms might exist on other planets.

Stalled microtubules might be responsible for some cases of the neurological disorder Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease, Tanabe and Takei report in the June 15, 2009 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology (www.jcb.org). A mutant protein makes the microtubules too stable to perform their jobs, the researchers find.

One of the mechanisms governing how our physical features and behavioural traits have evolved over centuries has been discovered by researchers at the University of Leeds.

Today, researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory's European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) launch a new database, the Gene Expression Atlas, which allows scientists to search and compare gene expression data at unprecedented detail and scope. Observing how gene expression varies in different cell types, tissues and under disease conditions can help researchers understand gene function and to develop new drugs and therapies.