Biology News

Research at the University of Liverpool has found how Saharan dust storms help sustain life over extensive regions of the North Atlantic Ocean.

Researchers have now provided genetic evidence that many bird species have a well-developed sense of smell (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 16.07.2008).

Archaeopteryx is famous as the world's oldest bird, but reptiles were flying about some 50 million years earlier than that (225 million years ago), even before large dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

A team of international scientists including the University of Melbourne, Department of Zoology, has established an identical mechanism of genetic imprinting, a process involved in marsupial and human fetal development, which evolved 150 million years ago

The problem with antibiotics is that, eventually, bacteria outsmart them and become resistant. But by targeting the gene that confers such resistance, a new drug may be able to finally outwit them.

A Florida State University faculty member is using computational techniques to evaluate a new class of cancer-killing drugs.

Extinction risks for natural populations of endangered species are likely being underestimated by as much as 100-fold because of a mathematical "misdiagnosis," according to a new study.

Scientists have found that the compound resveratrol -- found in red wine and grape skin -- slows age-related deterioration and functional decline of mice on a standard diet, but does not increase longevity when started at middle age.

While the evidence is clear that maize was first domesticated in Mexico, the time and location of the earliest domestication and dispersal events are still in dispute.

Researchers at the University of Bath have discovered that a bacterium that causes Lyme disease originated in Europe, rather than in North America as previously thought.