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When it comes to mating, male animals show off the flashiest of ornaments to convince females of their suitability. A peacock's ornate tail may be the best-known example of a mate-attracting ornament, but a new study finds that peacock tails have nothing on a tail of another kind. Sperm tails in fruit flies are the most extreme ornament ever described.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - In experiments with isolated cystic fibrosis lung cells, University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers and colleagues from two other institutions have partially restored the lost function of those cells.

The work is proof-of-concept for using a yeast genetic model to find therapeutic targets, in this case for people with the most common cystic fibrosis mutation, called deltaF508-CFTR. This mutation affects close to 90 percent of patients with cystic fibrosis, and half of those have two copies of the mutation.

BAR HARBOR, MAINE -- Sea urchins are remarkable organisms. They can quickly regrow damaged spines and feet. Some species also live to extraordinary old ages and -- even more remarkably -- do so with no signs of poor health, such as a decline in regenerative capacity or an increase in age-related mortality. These ocean Methuselahs even reproduce as if they were still youngsters.

JUPITER, FL - May 25, 2016 - Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found that one of the most widely prescribed pain and anti-inflammation drugs slows the growth rate of a specific kind of cancer in animal models and suggests the medication could have the same effect on other types of tumors.

The new study, published online ahead of print by the journal Cancer Research, focused on the effects of celecoxib (Pfizer's Celebrex®).

The malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum hijacks an immune system process to invade red blood cells, according to a study led by researchers at Penn State College of Medicine. Understanding how malaria invades the cells could lead to a more effective vaccine.

Unlike aspirin, bone marrow doesn't come with a neatly printed label with dosage instructions. However, a new study published in Cell Reports provides clues about how the dose of transplanted bone marrow might affect patients undergoing this risky procedure, frequently used to treat cancer and blood diseases.

In the study, USC Stem Cell researcher Casey Brewer and colleagues in the laboratory of Rong Lu found that transplantation dose affects the behavior of blood-forming stem cells in bone marrow -- called hematopoietic stem cells, or HSCs.

Clownfish became a household name over a decade ago when Disney released the movie "Finding Nemo."

Found exclusively in the Indo-Pacific, clownfish are symbiotic animals that only live in sea anemones, a close relative of corals that don't have a hard outer shell. The anemone provides a home and protection for the clownfish, while the clownfish provides food for the anemone.

Using a powerful combination of techniques from biophysics to mathematics, researchers have revealed new insights into the mechanism of a liver enzyme that is critical for human health. The enzyme, phenylalanine hydroxylase, turns the essential amino acid phenylalanine -- found in eggs, beef and many other foods and as an additive in diet soda -- into tyrosine, a precursor for multiple important neurotransmitters.

Building on data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project, a multi-institutional team of scientists has completed the first large-scale "proteogenomic" study of breast cancer, linking DNA mutations to protein signaling and helping pinpoint the genes that drive cancer.

Vampires are real, and they've been around for millions of years. At least, the amoebae variety has. So suggests new research from UC Santa Barbara paleobiologist Susannah Porter.

Using a scanning electron microscope to examine minute fossils, Porter found perfectly circular drill holes that may have been formed by an ancient relation of Vampyrellidae amoebae. These single-celled creatures perforate the walls of their prey and reach inside to consume its cell contents. Porter's findings appear in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Symptoms of illness are not inevitably tied to an underlying disease --rather, many organisms, including humans, adapt their symptom expression to suit their needs. That's the finding of Arizona State University's Leonid Tiokhin, whose research appears in the Quarterly Review of Biology.

La Jolla, Calif., May 25, 2016 -- Research led by scientists at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) has identified a new regulator of immune responses. The study, published recently in Immunity, sheds new light on why T cells fail to clear chronic infections and eliminate tumors. The findings open the door for a new approach to modulating T cell responses in many clinical settings, including infections, autoimmune diseases, and tumors that are unresponsive to currently available therapies.

Borides are among the hardest and most heat-resistant substances on the planet, but their Achilles' Heel, like so many materials', is that they oxidize at high temperatures. Oxidation is the chemical reaction commonly known as corrosion or rusting -- it can signal the end for a material's structural integrity. But researchers from Drexel University, Linkoping University in Sweden and Imperial College London have produced an aluminum-layered boride whose unique behavior at high temperatures keeps it one step ahead of nature's slow march toward high- temperature chemical degradation.

Jeremy Berg, Associate Senior Vice Chancellor for Science Strategy and Planning in the Health Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh and former director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), has been named by the Board of Directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to serve as editor-in-chief of the Science family of journals, beginning 1 July 2016.

How sensitive an ecosystem is to unforeseen environmental stress can be determined, according to Daniel Bruno, previous visiting researcher at Umeå University. The approach is to study how many species there are in an ecosystem and what proportion of these can replace species that are hard hit by environmental disturbances. Thanks to this new knowledge, we can predict how various ecosystems react to environmental disturbances, which is necessary to maintain these systems in a sustainable way.