Climate Change, Human Activity And Wildfires - Climate has been implicated by a new study as a major driver of wildfires in the last 2,000 years. September 23, 2008

Genetically Modified Crops Protect Neighbors From Pests - A study in northern China indicates that genetically modified cotton, altered to express the insecticide, Bt, not only reduces pest populations among those crops, but also reduces pests among other nearby crops that have not been modified with Bt. September 22, 2008

How Corals Adapt To Day And Night - Researchers have uncovered a gene in corals that responds to day/night cycles, which provides some tantalizing clues into how symbiotic corals work together with their plankton partners. September 15, 2008

Female Spiders Eat Small Males When They Mate - Female spiders are voracious predators and consume a wide range of prey, which sometimes includes their mates. September 12, 2008

Childbirth Was Already Difficult For Neanderthals - Neanderthals had a brain at birth of a similar size to that of modern-day babies. September 10, 2008

Can Science Improve Man's Best Friend? - If you could design the perfect dog, what would it look like? Tall, short, fluffy, wiry, black, white, tan or brindle? September 9, 2008

DNA Editing Tool Flips Its Target - Imagine having to copy an entire book by hand without missing a comma. Our cells face a similar task every time they divide. September 8, 2008

Oldest Gecko Fossil Ever Found - Scientists in London have announced the discovery of the oldest known fossil of a gecko, with body parts that are forever preserved in life-like form after 100 million years of being entombed in amber. September 4, 2008

New Computational Method To Investigate Origin Of Life - Scientists at Penn State have developed a new computational method that they say will help them to understand how life began on Earth. September 3, 2008

Unexpected Large Monkey Population Discovered In Cambodia - A Wildlife Conservation Society report reveals surprisingly large populations of two globally threatened primates in a protected area in Cambodia. September 1, 2008

New Evidence Debunks 'Stupid' Neanderthal Myth - Research by UK and American scientists has struck another blow to the theory that Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) became extinct because they were less intelligent than our ancestors (Homo sapiens). August 27, 2008

Algae: Biofuel Of The Future? - In the world of alternative fuels, there may be nothing greener than pond scum. August 21, 2008

Novel Fungus Helps Beetles To Digest Hard Wood - A little known fungus tucked away in the gut of Asian longhorned beetles helps the insect munch through the hardest of woods according to a team of entomologists and biochemists. August 20, 2008

Dying Frogs Sign Of A Biodiversity Crisis - Devastating declines of amphibian species around the world are a sign of a biodiversity disaster larger than just frogs, salamanders and their ilk, according to researchers from the University of California, Berkeley. August 19, 2008

New Bird Species Discovered In Africa - Scientists at the Smithsonian Institution have discovered a new species of bird in Gabon, Africa, that was, until now, unknown to the scientific community. August 18, 2008

New Group Of Plant Hormones Discovered - Scientists from the Wageningen University Laboratory of Plant Physiology and an international team of scientists have discovered a new group of plant hormones, the so-called strigolactones. August 14, 2008

Bugs Put The Heat In Chili Peppers - If you're a fan of habañero salsa or like to order Thai food spiced to five stars, you owe a lot to bugs, both the crawling kind and ones you can see only with a microscope. August 13, 2008

New Bacterial Species Found In Human Mouth - Scientists have discovered a new species of bacteria in the mouth. August 12, 2008

How Marine Mammals React To Sonar - NOAA’s Fisheries Service, in partnership with top international scientists and the U.S. Navy, has just completed a pioneering research effort in Hawaii to measure the biology and behavior of some of the most poorly understood whales on Earth. August 11, 2008

Duck-billed Dinosaurs Outgrew Predators To Survive - With long limbs and a soft body, the duck-billed hadrosaur had few defenses against predators such as tyrannosaurs. August 7, 2008

World's Smallest Snake Found In Barbados - The world's smallest species of snake, with adults averaging just under four inches in length, has been identified on the Caribbean island of Barbados. August 5, 2008

Elephants On Path To Extinction By 2020? - African elephants are being slaughtered for their ivory at a pace unseen since an international ban on the ivory trade took effect in 1989. August 4, 2008

Fungus Foot Baths Could Save Bees - One of the biggest world wide threats to honey bees, the varroa mite, could soon be about to meet its nemesis. Researchers at the University of Warwick are examining naturally occurring fungi that kill the varroa mite. July 30, 2008

Antarctic Was Once Much Warmer - A new fossil discovery - the first of its kind from the whole of the Antarctic continent - provides scientists with new evidence to support the theory that the polar region was once much warmer. July 24, 2008

Vaccine For Koala Chlamydia Close - Eighteen female koalas treated with an anti-chlamydia vaccine are showing positive results, giving scientists hope they have an answer to the disease that is threatening the survival of koalas in the wild. July 21, 2008

Birds Have A Good Sense Of Smell - Sight and hearing are the most important senses for birds - this is at least the received wisdom. By studying bird DNA, however, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, along with a colleague at the Cawthron Institute in New Zealand, have now provided genetic evidence that many bird species have a well-developed sense of smell. July 18, 2008

Scientists Test Method For Sanitizing Leafy Produce - Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists are studying new sanitizing methods to enhance the safety of leafy greens-technology that may result in safer salads. July 16, 2008

New Mode Of Gene Regulation Discovered In Mammals - Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have discovered a type of gene regulation never before observed in mammals - a "ribozyme" that controls the activity of an important family of genes in several different species. July 14, 2008

Whales And Dolphins Influence New Wind Turbine Design - Sea creatures have evolved over millions of years to maximise efficiency of movement through water; humans have been trying to perfect streamlined designs for barely a century. So shouldn't we be taking more notice of the experts? July 9, 2008

Agriculture Linked To Frog Sexual Abnormalities - A farm irrigation canal would seem a healthier place for toads than a ditch by a supermarket parking lot. July 7, 2008

Chameleon Spends Most Of Short Life In Egg - There is a newly discovered life history among the 28,300 species of known tetrapods, or four-legged animals with backbones. July 3, 2008

Ancient Oak Trees Help Reduce Global Warming - The battle to reduce carbon emissions is at the heart of many eco-friendly efforts, and researchers from the University of Missouri have discovered that nature has been lending a hand. July 1, 2008

What It's Like To Be A Bat - Not many people think about what it's like to be a bat, but for those who do, it's enlightening and potentially groundbreaking for understanding aspects of the human brain and nervous system. June 27, 2008

Our Genome Changes Over Lifetime - Researchers at Johns Hopkins have found that epigenetic marks on DNA-chemical marks other than the DNA sequence-do indeed change over a person's lifetime, and that the degree of change is similar among family members. June 26, 2008

Lyme Disease Spirochetes Tracked in 3D - Microbiologists at the University of Calgary have demonstrated the first direct visualization of the dissemination of Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. June 25, 2008

DNA Study Unlocks Mystery To Diverse Traits In Dogs - What makes a pointer point, a sheep dog herd, and a retriever retrieve? Why do Yorkshire terriers live longer than Great Danes? And how can a tiny Chihuahua possibly be related to a Great Dane? June 24, 2008

Bacteria Anticipate Changes In Environment - Microbes may be smarter than we think. A new study by Princeton University researchers shows for the first time that bacteria don't just react to changes in their surroundings - they anticipate and prepare for them. June 20, 2008

Female Chimps Use Copulation Calls Strategically - Female chimps are more concerned with having sex with many different males than finding the strongest mate, according to researchers. June 19, 2008

Lizards Pull A Wheelie - Why bother running on hind legs when the four you've been given work perfectly well? This is the question that puzzles Christofer Clemente. June 18, 2008

Mysterious Mountain Dinosaur May Be A New Species - A partial dinosaur skeleton unearthed in 1971 from a remote British Columbia site is the first ever found in Canadian mountains and may represent a new species, according to a recent examination by a University of Alberta researcher. June 13, 2008

New Zealand Bird Outwits Alien Predators - New research led by Dr Melanie Massaro and Dr Jim Briskie at the University of Canterbury, which found that the New Zealand bellbird is capable of changing its nesting behaviour to protect itself from predators, could be good news for island birds around the world at risk of extinction. June 11, 2008

Caribbean Monk Seal Gone Extinct From Human Causes - After a five year review, NOAA’s Fisheries Service has determined that the Caribbean monk seal, which has not been seen for more than 50 years, has gone extinct - the first type of seal to go extinct from human causes. June 10, 2008

Transgenic Plants Don't Hurt Beneficial Bugs - Genetically modified (GM) plants that use Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis), a common soil bacterium, to kill pests won't harm the pests' natural enemies, according to new research by Cornell entomologists. June 5, 2008

A Novel Bacterial Species Is Found Trapped In 120,000-year-old Ice - A team of Penn State scientists has discovered a new ultra-small species of bacteria that has survived for more than 120,000 years within the ice of a Greenland glacier at a depth of nearly two miles. June 4, 2008

DNA Clues To Reproductive Behavior - A species of wild yeast goes through a cycle of sexual reproduction once in every 1,000 asexual generations, according to new research by Imperial biologists published in the PNAS journal in April. May 29, 2008

First Female DNA Sequenced - Geneticists of Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) are the first to determine the DNA sequence of a woman. She is also the first European whose DNA sequence has been determined. May 28, 2008

Ancient Amphibian Missing Link Discovered - The description of an ancient amphibian that millions of years ago swam in quiet pools and caught mayflies on the surrounding land in Texas has set to rest one of the greatest current controversies in vertebrate evolution. May 23, 2008

Clue To Mystery Crustacean In Parasite Form - First identified in 1899, y-larvae have been one of the greatest zoological mysteries for over a century. May 22, 2008

Surgeon Operates To Rescue Chimp With Rare Deformity - An orthopaedic surgeon at the University of Liverpool has performed a groundbreaking operation on a chimp in Cameroon to correct a deformity more commonly seen in dogs. May 20, 2008

Humanity Genetically Divided For 100,000 Years - The human race was divided into two separate groups within Africa for as much as half of its existence, says a Tel Aviv University mathematician. May 19, 2008

Weird Shrimp Has Astounding Vision - A Swiss marine biologist and an Australian quantum physicist have found that a species of shrimp from the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, can see a world invisible to all other animals. May 16, 2008

Human Aging Gene Found In Flies - Scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) have found a fast and effective way to investigate important aspects of human aging. May 13, 2008

When Bears Steal Human Food, Mom's Not To Blame - Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) found that the black bears that become habituated to human food and garbage may not be learning these behaviors exclusively from their mothers, as widely assumed. May 12, 2008

Animal Interaction Behind Cambrian Explosion? - An event as simple as the world’s first bite may have sparked an ancient “explosion” of life 500 million years ago that led to the rise of the broad groups of animals that are still alive today. May 9, 2008

Dinosaur Bones Reveal Ancient Bug Bites - Paleontologists have long been perplexed by dinosaur fossils with missing pieces – sets of teeth without a jaw bone, bones that are pitted and grooved, even bones that are half gone. May 7, 2008

Scientists Discover Why Plague Is So Lethal - Bacteria that cause the bubonic plague may be more virulent than their close relatives because of a single genetic mutation, according to research published in the May issue of the journal Microbiology. May 6, 2008

Young Songbirds Babble Before They Learn To Sing - Young songbirds babble before they can mimic an adult's song, much like their human counterparts. May 5, 2008

Ancient Ecosystems Organized Much Like Our Own - Similarities between half-billion-year-old and recent food webs point to deep principles underpinning the structure of ecological relationships, as shown by researchers from the Santa Fe Institute, Microsoft Research Cambridge and elsewhere. May 2, 2008

Birds Can Detect Predators Using Smell - Many animal species detect and avoid predators by smell, but this ability has largely been ignored in the study of birds, since it was traditionally thought that they did not make use of this sense. April 30, 2008

T.Rex Has Clear Evolutionary Link To Birds - Putting more meat on the theory that dinosaurs' closest living relatives are modern-day birds, molecular analysis of a shred of 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex protein confirms that dinosaurs share common ancestry with chickens, ostriches, and to a lesser extent, alligators. April 29, 2008

Was Early Elephant An Amphibian? - Scientists studying two very ancient elephants surmised that they were probably semi-aquatic mammals, eating freshwater plants. April 28, 2008

Neanderthals Speak Again After 30,000 Years - Dr. Robert McCarthy, an assistant professor of anthropology in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters at Florida Atlantic University, has reconstructed vocal tracts that simulate the sound of the Neanderthal voice. April 22, 2008

World's Oldest Living Tree Discovered In Sweden - The world's oldest recorded tree is a 9,550 year old spruce in the Dalarna province of Sweden. The spruce tree has shown to be a tenacious survivor that has endured by growing between erect trees and smaller bushes in pace with the dramatic climate changes over time. April 17, 2008

Ancient Komodo Dragon Has Space-age Skull - The fearsome Komodo dragon is the world's largest living lizard and can take very large animal prey: now a new international study has revealed how it can be such an efficient killing machine despite having a wimpy bite and a featherweight skull. April 15, 2008

Rats Can Discriminate Odors In Milliseconds - Using an ethologically relevant task - exploratory sniffing - Daniel Wesson and colleagues from Boston University discovered that rats are able to discriminate odors much more quickly than previously thought, in as little as 140 milliseconds. April 10, 2008

First Lungless Frog Discovered - Researchers have confirmed the first case of complete lunglessness in a frog, according to a report in the April 8th issue of Current Biology. April 9, 2008

How Dengue Virus Matures, Becomes Infectious - Biologists at Purdue University have determined why dengue virus particles undergo structural changes as they mature in host cells and how the changes are critical for enabling the virus to infect new host cells. April 1, 2008

Ant Guts Could Pave The Way For Better Drugs - Scientists have discovered two key proteins that guide one of the two groups of pathogenic bacteria to make ant's hardy outer shells - their defense against the world. March 28, 2008

Scientists Discover Clue To 2 Billion Year Delay Of Life On Earth - Scientists from around the world have reconstructed changes in Earth’s ancient ocean chemistry during a broad sweep of geological time, from about 2.5 to 0.5 billion years ago. March 27, 2008

How Bats Classify Plants According To Echoes - Researchers have developed a computer algorithm that can imitate the bat's ability to classify plants using echolocation. March 26, 2008

53 Million-year-old Rabbit's Foot Bones Found - One day last spring, fossil hunter and anatomy professor Kenneth Rose, Ph.D. was displaying the bones of a jackrabbit's foot as part of a seminar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine when something about the shape of the bones looked oddly familiar. March 25, 2008

New Genus Of Prehistoric Aquatic Predator - One of the oldest and most complete plesiosaur fossils recovered in North America, and the oldest yet discovered from the Cretaceous Period, represents a new genus of the prehistoric aquatic predator. March 21, 2008

Gecko's 'Active' Tail Key to Preventing Falls and Aerial Maneuvers - How useful is an animal's tail? For the gecko, unlike most animals, it could be a matter of life or death, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley. March 18, 2008

Mystery Behind The Strongest Creature In The World - The strongest creature in the world, the Hercules Beetle, has a colour-changing trick that scientists have long sought to understand. March 12, 2008

History Of Life Seen In The Structure Of Transfer RNA - Transfer RNA is an ancient molecule, central to every task a cell performs and thus essential to all life. A new study from the University of Illinois indicates that it is also a great historian, preserving some of the earliest and most profound events of the evolutionary past in its structure. March 11, 2008

Tree Of Animal Life Has Branches Rearranged - A study led by Brown University biologist Casey Dunn uses new genomics tools to answer old questions about animal evolution. March 7, 2008

Biologists Surprised To Find Parochial Bacterial Viruses - Biologists examining ecosystems similar to those that existed on Earth more than 3 billion years ago have made a surprising discovery: Viruses that infect bacteria are sometimes parochial and unrelated to their counterparts in other regions of the globe. March 5, 2008

Hungry Sharks Take Strange Walks To Find Food - Sharks and other marine animals find food using a similar search pattern to the way people may shop, according to one of the largest analyses of foraging behaviour attempted so far – and the first such analysis of marine predators. March 4, 2008

Butterfly Fish 'May Face Extinction' - A beautiful black, white and yellow butterflyfish, much admired by eco-tourists, divers and aquarium keepers alike, may be at risk of extinction, scientists have warned. February 27, 2008

Small Sea Creatures May Foretell Climate Change - As oceans warm and become more acidic, ocean creatures are undergoing severe stress and entire food webs are at risk, according to scientists at a press briefing this morning at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston. February 25, 2008

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