The discovery of a new species of human relative was announced today, 10 September 2015, by the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University), the National Geographic Society and the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the National Research Foundation of South Africa (NRF).

This is a scanning electron micrograph of a human T lymphocyte from the immune system of a healthy donor. Sometimes when the immune system makes small mistakes, the body amplifies its response in a big way: Editing errors in the DNA of developing T and B cells can cause blood cancers. Now, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania have shown that when the enzyme key to cutting and pasting segments of DNA hits so-called "off-target" spots on a chromosome, the development of immune cells can lead to cancer in animal models. Knowing the exact nature of these editing errors will be helpful in designing therapeutic enzymes based on these molecular scissors. The Penn team's findings appear online this week in Cell Reports ahead of the print issue.

The ants become aggressive in response to the elongated projections (spotted patterns) of the larvae. Project Assistant Professor HOJO Masaru of Kobe University, Graduate School of Science, and joint research groups at the University of the Ryukyus and Harvard University have discovered that lycaenid butterfly larvae, which are in a symbiotic relationship with ants, can control the effect of dopamine by supplying the ants with nectar. The results of this study provide novel insight into the phenomenon of symbiosis and give clues about the physiological functions of dopamine. The study was published in Current Biology on July 31.