Research by a small group of microbiologists is revealing how marine microbes live in a mysterious area of the Earth: the realm just beneath the deep ocean floor. The ocean crust may be the largest biological reservoir on our planet.

Researchers with the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Comprehensive Cancer Center and UAB Department of Chemistry have won an $805,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program to study whether dead cancer cells left over after treatment encourage cancer's spread to other parts of the body.

Astrocytes are the most common type of cell in the brain and play an important role in the function of neurons – nerve cells. New research from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, shows that they are also directly involved in the regulation of signalling between neurons.

The scientific community already knew that many carnivores eat fruit, but had thought this was something purely anecdotal. Now researchers from the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) have shown that carnivorous animals such as foxes and martens play an important role in helping fruiting plants to reproduce and disperse their seeds.