evolution, cell & molecular biology

Hummingbirds perceive sweetness through a receptor with which other vertebrates taste savory foods. 

Meet some of the people featured in the January 2014 issue of The Scientist.

Chilly mice develop more tumors; gut bacteria aid cancer treatment; two Y chromosome genes sufficient for assisted reproduction; HIV’s “invisibility cloak”

Grasshopper mice harbor mutations in a pain-transmitting sodium channel that allow them to prey on highly toxic bark scorpions.

Researchers are working to understand how often-colorless biological nanostructures give rise to some of the most spectacular technicolor displays in nature.

Animals and plants come in a dizzying array of colors. Current research is cracking into the remarkable structures behind nature's artistic display.

Comparing gene transcripts from different species reveals surprising splicing diversity.

At age 16, Alexandra Sourakov has her first scientific publication, on the foraging behavior of butterflies.

Ancient bacteria living in deep-sea sediments are alive—but with metabolisms so slow that it’s hard to tell.

Despite suggestions to the contrary, the Y chromosome is not necessarily rotting away.

Research in yeast shows that aneuploidy is both a consequence of and an adaptation to stress.

Populations of organisms acquire beneficial traits repeatedly and rapidly through co-evolution with other species and through gene interaction.

Bacteria age, but as a lineage, can live forever.

The widespread bacteria known to manipulate host reproductive output can do so by ramping up stem cell division and consequent egg production in Drosophila.

Dried plant specimens reveal the origin of an insect pest that has spread throughout Europe.

A 35,000-year old woolly mammoth blood protein may aid in contemporary medical procedures.

A guide to free software for constructing and assessing species relationships

Protein interaction networks in Arabidopsis give clues to plant evolution and immunity.

Larger spores of a deadly fungal pathogen cause more virulent infections in mice.