Life Sciences and Chemistry

Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, have documented what they are calling possibly the most extreme case of animal structure elongation documented to date.

In a paper published in the November 6 issue of the journal Nature, Suzanne Dufour and Horst Felbeck show that a clam from a certain species can extend its foot (clams have only one foot) up to 30 times the length of its shell to reach chemicals in marine sediment necessary for th

In the animal world, it’s common for females to mate with several males during one and the same reproductive period. This leads to sperm competition, that is, sperm from several different males compete to fertilize the egg at the same time.

The most common response to increased sperm competition is for males to increase the number of sperm cells to inseminate a female with. Since males’ sperm reserves are not unlimited, males should be economical in using their sperm resources. Therefore, a

Despite the rich knowledge scientists now have of the genes that constitute the human genome, researchers have yet to unravel the precise choreography by which they work – or malfunction – together in the cell in response to triggers from the outside world.

“There is a code we need to understand to determine what happens to a cell under many different conditions, and ultimately to make predictions of how an entire genome is regulated,” explains Julia Zeitlinger, a postdoctoral associate at

While the medical community has been exploring the use of bacteriophages, a form of virus that can be used to manage bacteria that have become resistant to antibiotics, plant pathologists with the American Phytopathological Society (APS) now say that this same approach may also help fight plant disease.

According to Jason Gill, a phage researcher at the University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, phages have been proposed as plant-pathogen control agents in a process known as phage therapy–the

The Monty Python song was right: every sperm is sacred – if you’re living in the promiscuous world of chickens that is. Scientists studying the evolution of reproductive behaviour have shown that cockerels use sophisticated strategies to maximise reproductive return from limited sperm reserves.

University of Leeds researcher Dr. Tom Pizzari said: “When females are promiscuous, several males inseminate the same female, and their ejaculates compete inside the hen. This is ‘sperm competition’,

Cognitive abilities are influenced by an interplay of genes and environment. With regard to the genetic component, multiple genes are assumed to be responsible for interindividual variation in cognitive abilities. Despite tremulous progress in molecular genetics, little is known about specific genes that contribute to this complex behavior. In an attempt to further delineate the genetic component of cognitive abilities, the authors investigated the relationship between a genetic variation in the prio