Simple communication between a pair of neighboring cells allows tiny marine worms to move toward light using a sensory organ believed to be an ancient precursor of the eye, according to a study out this week in Nature. "It's remarkable that a primitive organism of the ocean, a living marine zooplankton, has the sophisticated ability to move in response to light with a pigment-photoreceptor cell combination," linkurl:Russell Fernald,;http://www.stanford.edu/group/fernaldlab/index.shtml an evolu

A day after dedicating a new facility for linkurl:pathogen research,;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55166/ the University of Texas-Galveston Medical Branch in Galveston announced yesterday (November 13) it will lay off roughly one-third of its workforce because of financial woes caused by damage from Hurricane Ike, which hit the region in September. The majority of the 3,800 employees expected to be let go by mid-January will be hospital employees, not researchers, according to Matt

Putting the brakes on blood vessel growth, or linkurl:angiogenesis,;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/18318/ surrounding a tumor can boost rather than stymie tumor growth, according to two papers out this week in Nature -- complicating a long-held belief in cancer biology. "Angiogenesis is very complex event and you really have to look at multiple aspects of it" when applying the biology to treatments, linkurl:Andreas Friedl,;http://www.pathology.wisc.edu/faculty/bio.aspx?name=afri

Credit: © Pekka Parviainen / Photo Researchers, Inc." /> Credit: © Pekka Parviainen / Photo Researchers, Inc. The paper: Ove Nilsson et al. "CO/FT regulatory module controls timing of flowering and seasonal growth cessation in trees," Science, 312:1040-3, 2006. (Cited in 58 papers). The finding: While trying to speed up breeding in flowering trees, Ove Nilsson's group

NPC1's amino acid sequence homology to PATCHED, human HMG-CoA reductase and SCAP. Credit: Reprinted with permission from AAAS / Carstea et al., Science 277:228, 1997." />NPC1's amino acid sequence homology to PATCHED, human HMG-CoA reductase and SCAP. Credit: Reprinted with permission from AAAS / Carstea et al., Science 277:228, 1997. In the 1990s, the Ara Parseghian Foundation donated money to the National I

The 5,000-year-old mummy Öetzi, found in a glacier in the European alps 17 years ago and believed to be an ancestor of modern Europeans, actually belonged to a different genetic family and may have no living descendants, researchers report today in Current Biology. The researchers sequenced linkurl:mitochondrial DNA;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/19318/(mtDNA) extracted from Öetzi's intestines, offering the oldest complete mtDNA sequence of modern humans. "We sort of ass

Manipulating the brain to over-express a protein can selectively erase short- and long-term fear memories in mice without compromising other memories or harming neurons, according to a study out this week in Neuron. The findings offer "a molecular paradigm by which we can actually erase a specific memory," linkurl:Joe Tsien,;http://www.gra.org/EminentScholarsDetail/tabid/368/xmmid/1072/xmid/193/xmview/2/school/Medical%20College%20of%20Georgia/Default.aspx a neuroscientist at the Medical Colleg

linkurl:"Molecules That Matter,";http://tang.skidmore.edu/pac/mtm/ a traveling exhibit that opened to the public at the newly renovated linkurl:Chemical Heritage Foundation;http://www.chemheritage.org/ in Philadelphia earlier this month, ties the history of the 20th century to a handful of the most influential molecules of the period. The goal of the exhibit is simple: to help the public, who typically cringes at memories from high school chemistry classes, to connect chemical discoveries to t

Adult stem cells become slower at dividing as they age because they get less efficient at sensing their microenvironment, according to a study to be published in Nature tomorrow. The findings suggest a mechanism to explain why production of adult stem cells such as sperm drops as an organism gets older. "I think this is a fantastic piece of work that begins to explain" how adult stem cells age, said linkurl:Leanne Jones,;http://www-biology.ucsd.edu/faculty/jonesl.html a stem cell biologist at

More than linkurl:six years;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/13395/ after researchers sequenced the genome of the most virulent human malaria parasite, researchers now report the sequences of two more species, according to a pair of studies published in Nature this week. By comparing the genetics of Plasmodium falciparum to that of the newly sequenced species, P. knowlesi, and linkurl:P. vivax;, the two teams have begun to identify the different mechanisms by which each species max

Capturing the eye of a potential mate is the first step in propagating a species. But can the way a female sees males of a certain color lead a single species of fish to split into linkurl:two?;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/14251/ A study published this week in Nature suggests two species of cichlid fish -- one red and one blue -- may have arisen from the female mating preference for males she is best able to see. "We've wanted since Darwin to understand how species originate,

A single-celled phytoplankton has a wily way of resisting viral attack, according to a study out this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. The organism makes itself invisible to its viral predator by shifting from the diploid to haploid life cycle stage. The findings are the first to show a eukaryote is capable of switching stages in its life cycle to avoid viral attack, and to point to a previously unrecognized role of sexual reproduction in the phytoplankton, Emiliania