A common weed called American mayapple may soon offer an alternative to an Asian cousin that's been harvested almost to extinction because of its anti-cancer properties. The near-extinct Asian plant, Podophyllyum emodi, produces podophyllotoxin, a compound used in manufacturing etoposide, the active ingredient in a drug used for treating lung and testicular cancer. Podophyllyum emodi is a cousin of the common mayapple weed found in the United States.

Sticking with what you know often comes at the price of learning about more favorable alternatives.

Chimpanzees in the Congo have developed specialized "tool kits" to forage for army ants, reveals new research published Sept. 3 in the American Journal of Primatology. This not only provides the first direct evidence of multiple tool use in this context, but suggests that chimpanzees have developed a sustainable way of harvesting food.

Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine researchers have discovered a new role for the bioactive lipid messenger, sphingosine-1-phosphate, or S1P, that is abundant in our blood – a finding that could lead to a new generation of drugs to fight cancer and inflammatory disease.