Many insects living in northern climates don't die at the first signs of cold weather. Rather, new research suggests that they use a number of specialized proteins to survive the chilly months.

These so-called "heat-shock proteins" ensure that the insects will be back to bug us come spring.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic lung disease typically characterized by the slow but progressive onset of shortness of breath or cough. Most patients live about five years after diagnosis. According to a new study a subset of patients with a specific genetic profile has a much more rapid progression to complete pulmonary failure and death without a lung transplant.

The simple notion of copying the body’s own natural "waste disposal" chemistry to mop up potentially toxic nitrogen has saved an estimated 80 percent of patients with urea cycle disorders --- most of them children – according to a report in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine summarizing a quarter century of experience with the treatment.

In a night sky filled with hungry bats, good-tasting moths increase their chances of survival by mimicking the sounds of their bad-tasting cousins, according to a new Wake Forest University study.

The study is the first to definitively show how an animal species uses acoustic mimicry as a defensive strategy. The research was conducted by Jesse Barber, a doctoral student in biology at Wake Forest. William E. Conner, professor of biology at Wake Forest, co-authored the study.

Matthew Tyska, Ph.D., recalls being intrigued, from the first day of his postdoctoral fellowship in 1999, with a nearly 30-year-old photograph. It was an electron micrograph that showed the internal structures of an intestinal cell microvillus, a finger-like protrusion on the cell surface. Microvilli are common features on the epithelial cells that line the body’s cavities.

Evidence for an awesome upheaval in a massive galaxy cluster was discovered in an image made by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The origin of a bright arc of ferociously hot gas extending over two million light years requires one of the most energetic events ever detected.

The cluster of galaxies is filled with tenuous gas at 170 million degree Celsius that is bound by the mass equivalent of a quadrillion, or 1,000 trillion, suns. The temperature and mass make this cluster a giant among giants.