In a report at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, the team of stalwart frog-fanciers described enlisting colleagues worldwide to ship secretions from hundreds of promising frog skins to their laboratory in the United Arab Emirates. Using that amphibious treasure trove, they identified more than 100 antibiotic substances in the skins of different frog species from around the world. One even fights “Iraqibacter,” the bacterium responsible for drug-resistant infections in wounded soldiers returning from Iraq.

Michael Conlon, Ph.D., who reported on the research, noted that the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria, which have the ability to shrug off conventional antibiotics, is a growing problem worldwide. As a result, patients need new types of antibiotics to replace drugs that no longer work.

Flies follow horizontal edges to regulate altitude, says a team of researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). This finding contradicts a previous model, which posited that insects adjust their height by visually measuring the motion beneath them as they fly.

Video Abstract

On the pest chart not many insects out rank the mosquito. Throw in that they carry and spread disease throughout the globe and you have a pretty solid case for making them a public enemy. Enter Evarcha culicvora, a small spider that has specialized on dining on those flying phlebotomist's. Interestingly the spider is dining on the blood the mosquito holds, and does it for mate attraction as much as nutrition according the paper "Mosquito-specialist spiders".

Which came first .... the chicken, or the egg? The philosophical mystery that has perplexed generations has finally been "cracked" by scientists from Sheffield University and the University of Warick. The researchers have discovered that a protein required for the formation of the chicken egg shells is found in only one place - inside the ovaries of the chicken.

At the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Rome today, Dr. Noriko Kagawa, of the Kato Ladies' Clinic in Tokyo, reported that transplanting the ovaries of young mice into aging female mice not only made the old mice fertile again - but also rejuvenated their behavior, and increased their lifespan by more than 40%!

Alex Liu of NYU's Scienceline.org made this informative video on Spider biologist Norman Platnick and the state of his work with the American Museum of Natural History. Dr. Platnick has traveled the world cataloging some of these creatures, many for the first time ever. World renowned for his work, he hopes to find as many as species as possible before some disappear.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) announced new grants totaling $79 million that was given through the HHMI undergraduate program, and the HHMI Professors program.

Fifty research universities in 30 states and the District of Columbia will be awarded a total of $70 million through the undergraduate program. The schools will use the grants, which range from $800,000 to $2 million over four years, to develop creative, research-based courses and curricula; to give more students vital experience working in the lab; and to improve science teaching from elementary school through college.

The opening of this video is great, as Dr. Jack Dumbacher, Curator of Birds and Mammals at the California Academy of Sciences, talks about his field expeditions to Papua New Guinea. His hunch after being bitten while releasing a bird from a net is that it may be poisonous. He checks with locals and they all confirm "those birds are poisonous and you shouldn't be touching them."

The man who helped to first sequence the human genome ten years ago, is looking to use biology to tackle the energy problem.

This image gallery brings to focus the splendid vascular systems of common plants, and showcases the beauty that resides at all levels of the natural world. See the entire gallery.