Mutually beneficial partnerships among species may play highly important but vastly underrecognized roles in keeping the Earth's ecosystems running, a group of evolutionary biologists suggests in a study.

Biologists at Tufts University School of Arts and Sciences have discovered that a change in membrane voltage in newly identified "instructor cells" can cause stem cells' descendants to trigger melanoma-like growth in pigment cells. The Tufts team also found that this metastatic transformation is due to changes in serotonin transport. The discovery could aid in the prevention and treatment of diseases like cancer and vitiligo as well as birth defects.

Lymphoma is a cancer of the immune system. White blood cells divide again and again, spreading abnormally throughout the body. Lymphomas can arise from two types of white blood cells, T cells or B cells, which divide uncontrollably when the molecular mechanisms that keep them in check go awry. A new study led by Robert Rickert, Ph.D., professor and director of the Inflammatory Diseases Program at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham), explores the roles of two enzymes, called SHIP and PTEN, in B cell growth and proliferation. The results, published online on October 18 in The Journal of Experimental Medicine, show that SHIP and PTEN act cooperatively to suppress B cell lymphoma. This new information could impact several anti-lymphoma therapies currently in development.

A newly identified regulatory process affecting the biology of immune system T cells should give scientists new approaches to explore the causes of autoimmunity and immune deficiency diseases.

Think of it as Habitat for Penguinity. A University of Washington conservation biologist is behind the effort to build nests in the barren rocks of the Galápagos Islands in the hope of increasing the population of an endangered penguin species.