Insights into Biology

Targeting HIV-1

"Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and colleagues in the United Kingdom have engineered T cells able to recognize HIV-1 strains that have evaded the immune system."

(Although, I have to wonder about specificity and side effects as they bind to HIV-1 about 450 times more strongly than normal T-cells.)

Death by Hyperdisease

Rats on Christmas Island - that went extinct in less than a decade - provide evidence of a new cause of extinction:

"This is not a case of humans over-hunting - I don't think anyone was that hungry," says a Curator at the American Museum of Natural History. "Within nine years of contact, these abundant, endemic species were evidently completely knocked out by an introduced disease - nothing else was around at the time that could have done the job. This study puts something else on the table as a reason for extinction."

Using Bacteria to Fight Bacteria

Scientists in Sweden have found that "friendly" bacteria can be used to thwart dangerous bacteria.

Reading Too Much Into Results

A group at the University of Exeter is studying burying beetles and their parenting habits, and then interpreting those results in a way that re-enforces human gender roles.

Equating beetle and human behavior seems more than a bit of a stretch.

Shifting Identities

Depending on where you look, the same gene can code for a different protein in different tissues.