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.

Researchers from the Salk Institute in La Jolla, CA have been studying the power struggle between the master genetic switches within plant cells that determine the orientation for growth - that is which end will put down roots, and which end will grow the shoot.

A collaboration led by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) has developed a microbe that can produce an advanced biofuel directly from biomass. Deploying the tools of synthetic biology, the JBEI researchers engineered a strain of Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria to produce biodiesel fuel and other important chemicals derived from fatty acids.

Portland, Oregon. January, 2010 -- Labgrab.com is announcing the release of a data visualization tool that graphs the current volume of science news by discipline. The colorful chart shows various sized boxes based on the volume of article headlines published by universities, journals, science news aggregators, and science blogs.

Researchers from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands have overcome three challenges in the production of bioethanol from agricultural waste by inserting a single gene from the bacterium Escherichia coli into the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The invention is published in this weeks journal of "Applied and Environmental Microbiology".

It was long thought that all 40,000 species of spiders in the world were strict predators - feeding on other insects or animals. Now two researchers - Christopher Meehan of Villanova University, and Eric Olson of Brandeis - have revealed that a small Central American jumping spider is predominantly a plant eater.

Researchers from the Technical University of Munich have fashioned industrial grade hook-and-loop tape - commonly known as velcro - out of steel, which they say can operate at temperatures up to 800 degrees Celsius, and withstand tensile loads up to 35 metric tons per square meter.

Since it was first suggested as the reason for red wines cardioprotective effects in 1992, it has been known that resveratrol acts as an anti-inflammatory. Exactly how this phytoalexin - or plant antibiotic - controlled inflammation has alluded researchers until recently.

University of Toronto scientists are part of an international team of researchers that have identified a pair of genes which they say can be used to quickly and accurately catalog plants around the world. The classification technique is known as DNA barcoding and uses a short genetic marker in an organism's DNA to identify it as belonging to a particular species.

Researchers from St George's, University of London have recently discovered a new protein that can kill the HIV virus when used as a microbicide. Even more promising - the team suggests how if might be possible to manufacture this protein in large enough quantities that could make it affordable for the thousands of people infected by the virus in the developing countries throughout the world.