Nature : Science World Report

May 18, 2012 03:18 PM EDT

Stanford Scientists Document Fragile Land-sea Ecological Chain

Douglas McCauley and Paul DeSalles did not set out to discover one of the longest ecological interaction chains ever documented. But that's exactly what they and a team of researchers - all current or former Stanford students and faculty - did in a new study published in Scientific Reports.

May 18, 2012 03:10 PM EDT

Researchers Name New Extinct Giant Turtle Found near World's Largest Snake

University of Florida researchers have described a new extinct giant turtle species from the same Colombian mine where they discovered Titanoboa - and one of the only animals the world's largest snake could not have eaten.

May 18, 2012 10:40 AM EDT

New Key Mechanism in Cell Division Discovered

Researchers from the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) have identified the mechanism by which protein Zds1 regulates a key function in mitosis, the process that occurs immediately before cell division. The result has been achieved in the online edition of the Journal of Cell Science ...

May 17, 2012 02:27 PM EDT

Ancient Giant Turtle Fossil Revealed

Picture a turtle the size of a Smart car, with a shell large enough to double as a kiddie pool. Paleontologists from North Carolina State University have found just such a specimen - the fossilized remains of a 60-million-year-old South American giant that lived in what is now Colombia.

May 17, 2012 01:12 PM EDT

Heliconius Butterfly Genome Explains Wing Pattern Diversity

Pooling funds and putting their heads together, more than 70 scientists from 9 institutions including the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, sequenced the entire genome of the butterfly genus Heliconius, a brightly colored favorite of collectors and scientists since the Victorian era. Their re...

May 17, 2012 01:01 PM EDT

New Technique Reveals Unseen Information in DNA Code

Imagine reading an entire book, but then realizing that your glasses did not allow you to distinguish "g" from "q." What details did you miss?

May 17, 2012 12:20 PM EDT

Fighting Bacteria's Strength in Numbers

Scientists at The University of Nottingham have opened the way for more accurate research into new ways to fight dangerous bacterial infections by proving a long-held theory about how bacteria communicate with each other.

May 17, 2012 11:05 AM EDT

Zebrafish Could Hold the Key to Understanding Psychiatric Disorders

Scientists at Queen Mary, University of London have shown that zebrafish could be used to study the underlying causes of psychiatric disorders.

May 17, 2012 09:17 AM EDT

Rocky Mountain Cave Closure Sought over Bat Disease

The U.S. government is seeking to close caves in national forests in the Northern Rockies to stem the spread of white-nose bat syndrome, a disease that has killed an estimated 5.5 million bats in 19 states and is spreading westward, officials said on Wednesday.

May 17, 2012 09:08 AM EDT

Fugitive Penguin 337 Spotted Alive in Tokyo Bay

After Penguin Number 337 made a daring bid for freedom from a Tokyo aquarium and vanished into the waters of Tokyo Bay two months ago, many feared the worst for the adventurous feathered fugitive.

May 16, 2012 02:19 PM EDT

Health Experts Narrow the Hunt for Ebola

Response efforts to outbreaks of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in Africa can benefit from a standardized sampling strategy that focuses on the carcasses of gorillas, chimpanzees and other species known to succumb to the virus, according to a consortium of wildlife health experts.

May 16, 2012 02:13 PM EDT

Freshwater Crayfish Found to Have Substance Covering Teeth Astonishingly Similar to Human Enamel

A team of Israeli and German scientists from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) and the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces have found an enamel-like layer in the mandibles of freshwater crayfish, according to an article in Nature Communications titled "Enamel-like Apatite Crown Co...