The salamander is a superhero of regeneration, able to replace lost limbs, damaged lungs, sliced spinal cord -- even bits of lopped-off brain.

A good wine needs to ripen. But it's a long way to the barrel. Even before the harvest, the grapevines have to overcome all kinds of obstacles. Extremely hot or rainy periods can destroy entire crops, not to mention the wide variety of pests that can appear on the scene. Bugs such as the vine louse or the rust mite, fungi such as mildew, or viruses such as the "Grapevine fanleaf virus" (GFLV for short) can give the vines a hard time. The GFLV infects the grapevine and causes fanleaf disease, resulting in deformed and very yellowed leaves, smaller grapes and crop loss.

Researchers from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, have drawn together 200 years' worth of oceanographic knowledge to investigate the distribution of a notorious deep-sea giant – the king crab. The results, published this week in the Journal of Biogeography, reveal temperature as a driving force behind the speciation and radiation of a major seafloor predator; globally, and over tens of millions of years of Earth's history.

A similarity in brain disturbance between insects and people suffering from migraines, stroke and epilepsy points the way toward new drug therapies to address these conditions.

We are all familiar with the fact that cognitive function declines as we get older. Moreover, recent studies have shown that the specific kind of daily activities we engage in during the course of our lives appears to influence the extent of this decline. A team of researchers from Technische Universität Berlin are studying how division of labour among honey bees affects their learning performance as they age. Surprisingly, they have found that, by switching their social role, aging honey bees can keep their learning ability intact or even improve it. The scientists are planning to use them as a model to study general aging processes in the brain, and they even hope that they may provide some clues on how to prevent them. Dr. Ricarda Scheiner, leader of the research team, will present these findings at the Society of Experimental Biology Annual Meeting in Glasgow on Wednesday 1st July 2009.

Scientists from Texas are batty over a new discovery which could lead to the single most important medical breakthrough in human history—significantly longer lifespans. The discovery, featured on the cover of the July 2009 print issue of The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), shows that proper protein folding over time in long-lived bats explains why they live significantly longer than other mammals of comparable size, such as mice.

Many species of animals go through a period of torpor to conserve energy when resources are scarce. But when it comes to switching to energy-saving mode, the champion by far among vertebrates is the burrowing frog (Cyclorana alboguttata), which can survive for several years buried in the mud in the absence of any food or water. How do they accomplish this feat? A team of scientists at the University of Queensland have discovered that the metabolism of their cells changes radically during the dormancy period allowing the frogs to maximise the use of their limited energy resources without ever running on empty. This discovery could prove to have important medical applications in the long term. "It could potentially be useful in the treatment of energy-related disorders such as obesity", explains Ms. Sara Kayes who will present her findings at the Society of Experimental Biology Annual Meeting in Glasgow on Monday 29th June 2009.

Between the 1932 and 2008 Olympic Games, world record times of the men's 100m sprint improved by 0.6 seconds due to improved training techniques and technological advances. Imagine if this improvement could be achieved by a simple change in diet. Scientists at the Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology in Austria have managed to achieve an equivalent feat in mice fed on a diet high in polyunsaturated fatty acids.

Playboy founder Hugh Hefner's legacy will live on with a new University of Central Florida study aimed at saving the endangered bunnies named after him.

Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have zeroed in on the genes responsible for changing flower color, an area of research that began with Gregor Mendel's studies of the garden pea in the 1850's.

A new technique for transplanting the ovaries of women who have lost their fertility as a result of cancer treatment was outlined to the 25th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology today (Monday 29 June). Dr. Pascal Piver, manager of the IVF Centre at Limoges University Hospital, Limoges, France, described a new, two-step method of ovarian transplant that has produced excellent results in women whose ovaries have been frozen because of cancer treatment. He said that his team's technique worked to restore ovarian function quickly and already one patient from his clinic had had a baby and another had become pregnant.

The thought of coral reefs tends to conjure up images of tropical vacations, complete with snorkeling among tropical fish in crystal clear waters.

Humans' ability to easily distinguish among many faces and recognize people they know goes way, way back, say researchers reporting online on June 25th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. That assertion stems from new evidence that, like us, rhesus monkeys tell their friends from foes by picking up on the precise layout of facial features.

Using a "neurologger" specially designed to record the brain activity of pigeons in flight, researchers reporting online on June 25th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, have gained new insight into what goes through the birds' minds as they fly over familiar terrain. The study is the first to simultaneously record electrical brain activity integrated with large-scale navigational movements of free-flying birds, according to the researchers.

Researchers studying the nervous control of nematode mating behavior have produced video footage of a male worm preparing to mate with a hermaphrodite. Writing in the open access journal BMC Biology, Allyson Whittaker and Paul Sternberg from the California Institute of Technology investigated the role of the excitatory neurotransmitter acetylcholine in regulating tail muscles to achieve an exploratory embrace.

How did piranhas — the legendary freshwater fish with the razor bite — get their telltale teeth? Researchers from Argentina, the United States and Venezuela have uncovered the jawbone of a striking transitional fossil that sheds light on this question. Named Megapiranha paranensis, this previously unknown fossil fish bridges the evolutionary gap between flesh-eating piranhas and their plant-eating cousins.

Contrary to predictions, males of high genetic quality are not very successful when it comes to fertilizing eggs. A new study on seed beetles by Swedish and Danish scientists Göran Arnqvist and Trine Bilde shows that when a female mates with several males, the males of low genetic quality are the most successful in fertilizing eggs. The study is published in this week's issue of Science.

Small whales are disappearing from the world's oceans and waterways as they fall victim to fishing gear, pollution, and habitat loss – compounded by a lack of conservation measures such as those developed for great whales, according to a new WWF report.

In addition to providing fundamental insights into the early evolution of the estrogen receptor, research by a team at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine may lead to a contraceptive for female lampreys – a jawless fish considered an invasive pest species in the Great Lakes region of the United States. This could prove important to the Great Lakes region, where lampreys aggressively consume trout, salmon, sturgeon and other game fish.

Scientists are warning that a new form of unregulated whaling has emerged along the coastlines of Japan and South Korea, where the commercial sale of whales killed as fisheries "bycatch" is threatening coastal stocks of minke whales and other protected species.

What do great white sharks have in common with serial killers? Refined hunting skills, according to a paper published today in the Zoological Society of London's Journal of Zoology.

Researchers from the Teruel-Dinópolis Joint Palaeontology Foundation have compared an Allosauroidea tooth found in deposits in Riodeva, Teruel, with other similar samples. The palaeontologists have concluded that this is the largest tooth of a carnivorous dinosaur to have been found to date in Spain.

Legal loopholes and insufficient law enforcement mean that Thailand continues to harbour the largest illegal ivory market in Asia, says a new report from the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC.

Money spiders infected with Rickettsia bacteria are less likely to 'balloon' – that is, to use their silk as sails to catch gusts of wind and travel long distances. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Biology suggest that it may be in the bacteria's interests to ground the spiders and that this reduction in dispersal could reduce gene flow and impact on reproductive isolation within the meta-population.

Forget the old folk tales about snakes hypnotizing their prey. The tentacled snake from South East Asia has developed a more effective technique. The small water snake has found a way to startle its prey so that the fish turn toward the snake's head to flee instead of turning away. In addition, the fish's reaction is so predictable that the snake actually aims its strike at the position where the fish's head will be instead of tracking its actual movement.

In the competition for a partner, males typically have to vie with each other – be it with a colorful plumage, a large set of antlers or a seductive courtship dance. The females of some species, however, copulate with several males, so that rivals even after mating are still not defeated. So their sperm become rivals. Because greater size can increase the chance of fertilization, in some species truly giant sperm cells have evolved – some grow to be even larger than the male that produced them. Now, an international group of researchers led by Dr. Renate Matzke-Karasz, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich, has indirectly detected signs of giant sperm in fossilized ostracods. Using synchrotron X-ray holotomography, a highly complex imaging technique developed at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, the researchers were able to look non-invasively deep inside these tiny crustaceans, which measure only one millimeter in length. "In these microfossils, we detected organs that are required for transferring giant spermatozoa," reports Matzke-Karasz. "Since recent ostracods still produce giant sperm, and maneuver them with the same organs as 100 million years ago, it's safe to say that this distinctive feature evolved only once in this group. It seems to be an evolutionary successful reproduction strategy, even though it comes at an exceedingly high price for both genders." (Science Early Online Edition, 18 June 2009)

Although worlds apart, the way fish learn could be closer to humans' way of thinking than previously believed, suggests a new research study.

People make value judgements about others based on their facial expressions. A new study, carried out be Spanish and Brazilian researchers, shows that – after looking at a face for only 100 milliseconds – we can detect expressions of happiness and surprise faster than those of sadness or fear.

Scientists have discovered a unique beaked, plant-eating dinosaur in China. The finding, they say, demonstrates that theropod, or bird-footed, dinosaurs were more ecologically diverse in the Jurassic period than previously thought, and offers important evidence about how the three-fingered hand of birds evolved from the hand of dinosaurs.

The zebra mussels that have wreaked ecological havoc on the Great Lakes are harder to find these days — not because they are dying off, but because they are being replaced by a cousin, the quagga mussel. But zebra mussels still dominate in fast-moving streams and rivers.