The New York Times, March 27, 2007

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“Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle” has now taken on a new meaning. Scientists studying marmosets have discovered that over half the males carry their brother’s sperm.

Marmosets, small monkeys that live in South America, have long been a genetic enigma. Marmoset mothers almost always give birth to fraternal twins, which develop from two eggs and are thus genetically distinct. In 1962, scientists at Dartmouth Medical School discovered that almost all marmosets carry some blood-generating stem cells that began in their twin sibling.

Continue reading “In the Marmoset Family, Things Really Do Appear to Be All Relative” →

There are only a few basic ways to fight viruses. A vaccine can prime the immune system to attack them as soon as they invade the body. If a virus manages to establish itself, a doctor may be able to prescribe a drug to slow down its spread. And if all else fails, a doctor may quarantine a patient to head off an epidemic.

Now some scientists are exploring a fundamentally different strategy to fight viruses. They want to wipe them out by luring them to their destruction, like mice to mousetraps.

Continue reading “Scientists Explore Ways to Lure Viruses to Their Death” →

The Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania may not be terribly tall — only half the height of their famous neighbor, Mount Kilimanjaro. But to scientists who tally the planet’s biodiversity, they tower over the rest of the world. The forests that cover their flanks contain the highest density of endangered animals anywhere on earth.

“This is a really important place,” said Neil Burgess, an expert on the Eastern Arc Mountains at the University of Cambridge and the World Wildlife Fund. “Biologists who go there just keep finding more and more species.”

Continue reading “A Biological Hot Spot in Africa, With New Species Still to Discover” →