Researchers report they have found a way to disrupt the spread of antibiotic-resistance genes among S. pneumoniae bacteria, which can contribute to pneumonia (pictured), meningitis and other dangerous ailments. The bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae – which can cause pneumonia, meningitis, bacteremia and sepsis – likes to share its antibiotic-defeating weaponry with its neighbors. Individual cells can pass resistance genes to one another through a process called horizontal gene transfer, or by "transformation," the uptake of DNA from the environment.

The European pied flycatcher, and later its close relative the collared flycatcher, have long been an important research organism for scientists at many universities. Just how new species are established is still one of the most central questions in biology. In an article in the leading scientific journal Nature, researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden describe how they mapped the genomes of the European pied flycatcher and the collared flycatcher and found that it is disparate chromosome structures rather than separate adaptations in individual genes that underlies the separation of the species.