Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered what likely triggered the eruption of a "supervolcano" that coated much of the western half of the United States with ash fallout 760,000 years ago.

Using a new technique developed at Rensselaer, the team determined that there was a massive injection of hot magma underneath the surface of what is now the Long Valley Caldera in California some time within 100 years of the gigantic volcano’s eruption.

"The Sopranos" have some competition -- brown-headed cowbirds.

Cowbirds have long been known to lay eggs in the nests of other birds, which then raise the cowbirds’ young as their own.

Sneaky, perhaps, but not Scarface.

Now, however, a University of Florida study finds that cowbirds actually ransack and destroy the nests of warblers that don’t buy into the ruse and raise their young.

Jeff Hoover, an avian ecologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History, is the lead author on the first study to document experimental evidence of this peeper payback -- retaliation to encourage acceptance of parasitic eggs.

Findings will be published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences March 5.

"It’s the female cowbirds who are running the mafia racket at ou

Students of the evolution of social behavior got a big boost with the publication of the newly sequenced honeybee genome in October 2006. The honeybee (Apis mellifera) belongs to the rarified cadre of insects that pool resources, divide tasks, and communicate with each other in highly structured colonies. Understanding how this advanced state of organization evolved from a solitary lifestyle has been an enduring question in biology.

For a lucky subset of vertebrates, losing an appendage is no big deal. As many an inquisitive child knows, salamanders can regenerate lost limbs or tails; and as lab investigators know, zebrafish can regrow lost fins. Of course, humans and other "higher" vertebrates must make do with repairing rather than regenerating damaged tissues. Though whole body generation (WBR) does occur, it’s typically restricted to a subset of morphologically less complex invertebrates, such as sponges, flatworms, and jellyfish.

In a new study, Yuval Rinkevich et al. discovered an unusual mode of WBR in our closest invertebrate relative, the sea squirt Botrylloides leachi.

Superconductivity -- the conduction of electricity with zero resistance -- sometimes can, it seems, become stalled by a form of electronic "gridlock."

A possible explanation why is offered by new research at Cornell University.

Why do some individuals sacrifice their own self-interest to help others? The evolution and maintenance of cooperative behavior is a classic puzzle in evolutionary biology. In some animal societies, cooperation occurs in close-knit family groups and kin selection explains apparently selfless behavior.

Not so for the lance-tailed manakin. Males of this little tropical bird cooperate in spectacular courtship displays with unrelated partners, and the benefits of lending a helping wing may only come years down the line. Instead of fighting over females, pairs of male lance-tailed manakins team up to court prospective mates.