In the past few centuries, our understanding of bacteria has progressed from mysterious medieval vapours, to the microscopic "animalcules" of van Leeuwenhoek, to the germ theory of disease à la Pasteur, to the realizations that bacteria outnumber us within our own bodies and that good "probiotic" bacteria actually make us healthier.  Now, a new study seems to have discovered a Batman bacterium.  Well, technically, the bacterium was already well-known; the discovery was to show that this prokaryotic Bruce Wayne is, in fact, Batman.

Human embryonic stem cells still get all of the attention - a company in California might be able to do a clinical trial for an applied hESC treatment and it was in the news everywhere, but researchers at the University of Minnesota's Lillehei Heart Institute have shown why the un-controversial induced pluripotent stem cell technology may deserve it more. Researchers  have combined genetic repair with cellular reprogramming to generate stem cells capable of muscle regeneration in a mouse model for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). 

The nucleic and amino acids caught up in the infamous "selfish" segregation distorter (SD) saga may be just inanimate chemical compounds to most of us, but they have put on a soap opera for biologists since the phenomenon was discovered in fruit flies 50 years ago. 

When male flies make their sperm, the SD gene (call it "A") manages to rig meiosis — the specialized cell division that makes sex cells — so that maturing sperm that bear chromosomes with the susceptible allele (call that one "a") end up defective and discarded. They never even leave the testes. It is murder, of a sort. Similar selfish systems occur in mammals, including humans.

Due to the insights gained from a decade's worth of viral research, it's not surprising that in the autumn of 2013, Penn State University will offer a newly developed course in viral ecology. For a century, the word virus had been exclusively associated with certain human, animal, plant or computer diseases. Virus, which is rooted in the Latin word for a slimy, poisonous liquid, had nothing but negative connotations. Yet virologists have slowly come to realize that only a minority of viruses are virulent. Most are innocuous, some are definitely beneficial, and others are indispensable to their hosts.

Chronic or acute liver failure can be deadly. Toxins take over, the skin turns yellow and higher brain function slows. A line of special liver cells could change that, says Neil Talbot, a Research Animal Scientist for the USDA Agricultural Research Service, in an interview with the American Society of Animal Science.

The base pairs that hold together two pieces of RNA, the older cousin of DNA, are some of the most important molecular interactions in living cells. Many scientists believe that these base pairs were part of life from the very beginning and that RNA was one of the first polymers of life. But there is a problem. The RNA bases don't form base pairs in water unless they are connected to a polymer backbone, a trait that has baffled origin-of-life scientists for decades. If the bases don't pair before they are part of polymers, how would the bases have been selected out from the many molecules in the "prebiotic soup" so that RNA polymers could be formed?

The health benefits of low-dose aspirin and omega-3 fatty acids in foods like flax seeds and salmon are touted frequently but the detailed mechanisms involved in their effects are not fully known.

A report in Chemistry&Biology says that aspirin helps trigger the production of resolvins, molecules that are naturally made by the body from omega-3 fatty acids. These resolvins shut off, "resolve," the inflammation that underlies destructive conditions such as inflammatory lung disease, heart disease, and arthritis.

If a genome is the blueprint for life, then the chief architects are  the molecular regulators of epigenetics, say Yale School of Medicine researchers.

In the past 20 years, scientists have discovered that some proteins, epigenetic factors, traverse the static genome and turn the genes on or off. The staggering number of potential combinations of active and inactive genes explains why a relatively small number of genes can carry out such a wide range of functions. But what guides these epigenetic factors to their target? The answer specialized RNAsb - piRNAs.

That biology's four themes--- unity, diversity, continuity and interaction--- are constantly at play is obvious in a good paper published last month by Jennifer Pluznick and fourteen other lead researchers throughout the United States and France.

Background Information

Propionate (or propanate) is the anion resulting from the split-up of propanoic acid. It's used as a mold-inhibitor in bread and also found in sweat and milk. It's one example of a group of 2 to 5-carbon fatty acids known as short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) that bacteria create when breaking down complex carbohydrates and sometimes protein. Also relevant is that SCFAs are found in the colon where they are absorbed into the blood stream.