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The tropics are home to an extraordinary diversity of insect species. How great is it, exactly? We do not know, but today, researchers at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History published a study on tropical beetles that can help us progress towards an answer to this question. The paper was published in the open access, peer-reviewed journal Zookeys.

The base pairs that hold together two pieces of RNA, the older cousin of DNA, are some of the most important molecular interactions in living cells. Many scientists believe that these base pairs were part of life from the very beginning and that RNA was one of the first polymers of life. But there is a problem. The RNA bases don't form base pairs in water unless they are connected to a polymer backbone, a trait that has baffled origin-of-life scientists for decades.

WASHINGTON -- The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has saved and improved millions of lives worldwide and offered proof that HIV/AIDS services can be effectively delivered on a large scale even in countries with high rates of disease and resource constraints, says a new congressionally mandated evaluation conducted by the Institute of Medicine.

Both AMD, which affects around 50 million people worldwide, and aHUS, a rare kidney disease that affects children, are associated with incorrectly controlled immune systems. A protein called complement factor H (CFH) is responsible for regulating part of our immune system called the complement cascade. Genetic alterations in CFH have been shown to increase a person's risk of developing either AMD or aHUS, but rarely both. Why this is the case has never been explained until now.

The DNA, just like hair, has a tendency to become knotted, thus it may be useful to disentangle it.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to "actively" choose at random (or better, in one solution) the filaments with the desired features, and this is why scientists adopt "passive" solutions like, for instance, having the DNA pass through nano-pores or nano-channels.

The study published in "Angewandte Chemie" might help to work out strategies for developing potential drugs. As the team of scientist including Markus Zweckstetter and Eckhard Mandelkow report, methylene blue inactivates molecular residues that promote the bonding of tau proteins.

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Feb. 19, 2013—A study by researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory and a multinational team reveals how daclatasvir, a direct-acting antiviral agent in development for the treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV), targets one of its proteins and causes the fastest viral decline ever seen with anti-HCV drugs – within 12 hours of treatment.

Chronic infection with hepatitis C virus affects about 150 million people worldwide. It is the leading cause of cirrhosis, liver cancer and liver transplants and results in some 350,000 deaths worldwide every year.

PITTSBURGH—The Web makes it possible for lots of people to collaborate on projects, but it doesn't make it easy to lead them. A Carnegie Mellon University researcher has developed a new tool that helps leaders see complex, collaborative projects through to completion by redistributing leadership responsibilities.

The high cost of medication, stigmatisation and poor acceptance of their condition are causing young adults to take a dangerous approach to managing their asthma, according to new research published today in the journal BMJ Open.

In the UK 5.4 million people are currently receiving treatment for asthma: 1.1 million children (one in 11) and 4.3 million adults (one in 12). There were 1,131 deaths from asthma in the UK in 2009. Most asthma deaths are preventable.

Despite the availability of effective treatments, poor asthma control is common.

A genetically mosaic Eucalyptus tree is able to control which leaves are saved from predation because of alterations in its genes, finds an study published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Plant Biology. Between two leaves of the same tree there can be many genetic differences – this study found ten SNP, including ones in genes that regulate terpene production, which influence whether or not a leaf is edible.

Can existing ecological communities persist intact as temperatures rise? This is a question of increasing relevance in the field of climate change and is the focus of a new study to be published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society of London on 20 February. The study suggests that the answer to this question may have as much to do with the biological interactions that shape communities as with the effects of climate change itself.

Scientists have identified protein families expressed during tissue regeneration in newts, providing the groundwork for research into whether particular sets of genes are used for the purpose. The transcriptome – the map of all RNA molecules – of the newt is published this week in BioMed Central's open access journal Genome Biology. Notophthalmus viridescens is a useful model in regenerative medicine, thanks to its ability to regenerate tissue, and this data gives insights into the mechanisms behind this process.

Similar—or even identical—mutations can occur during diversification in completely separate populations of E. coli evolving over more than 1,000 generations, according to researchers at the University of British Columbia and the University of Montana.

The findings by UBC zoologist and mathematician Michael Doebeli and Matthew Herron, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Montana, will be published next week in the open access journal PLOS Biology.

Understanding how and why diversification occurs is important for understanding why there are so many species on Earth. In a new study published on 19 February in the open access journal PLOS Biology, researchers show that similar—or even identical—mutations can occur during diversification in completely separate populations of E. coli evolving in different environments over more than 1000 generations. Evolution, therefore, can be surprisingly predictable.

The second tropical depression of the northwestern Pacific Ocean season formed on Feb. 19, and NASA's Aqua satellite showed the storm was soaking the central and southern Philippines.