Two proteins involved in oral taste detection, TAS1R3 and GNAT3, also play a crucial role in sperm development, according to a new paper.

While breeding mice for taste-related studies, the researchers discovered that they were unable to produce offspring that were simultaneously missing two taste-signaling proteins: TAS1R3, a component of both the sweet and umami (amino acid) taste receptors; and GNAT3, a molecule needed to convert the oral taste receptor signal into a nerve cell response. 

Some elite track and field athletes peak young, under the age of 20, while others peak later - but only a small fraction of star junior athletes had similar success as senior athletes.

An Indiana University analysis compared the performance of elite track and field athletes and conclude that physical maturation is behind the disparity, with athletes who mature early reaping the benefits early, seeing their best times, jumps and throws at a younger age than Olympians, many of whom mature later. 

Veloxis Pharmaceuticals announced that LCP-Tacro successfully demonstrated non-inferiority compared to tacrolimus (Prograf®; Astellas Pharma) in its Phase III clinical trial, Study 3002.

The Phase III randomized, double-blind and double-dummy study in 543 de novo kidney transplant recipients, with Prograf as the comparator, met its primary efficacy and primary safety endpoints.

The study was conducted under a Special Protocol Agreement with the FDA and the results are considered pivotal for the planned U.S. regulatory filing expected to occur in the second half of 2013.

There's a new weapon to fight poachers who kill elephants, hippos, rhinos and other wildlife - nuclear bombs. 

By measuring radioactive carbon-14 deposited in tusks and teeth by open-air nuclear bomb tests, researchers can pinpoint the year an animal died, which discloses if the ivory was taken illegally. 

Miniaturization is in - but often the batteries that power them are as large or larger than the devices themselves, which defeats the purpose of building small.

Nowm a team of researchers has shown that 3D printing can be used to print lithium-ion microbatteries the size of a grain of sand. The printed microbatteries could supply electricity to tiny devices in fields from medicine to communications, including many that have lingered on lab benches for lack of a battery small enough to fit the device, yet provide enough stored energy to power them.

A new study used mathematical modeling and experiments on ants to show that a group is capable of developing flexible resource management strategies and characteristic responses of its own.

Group-living animals are led to regulate their activity and to make decisions on how to manage resources, under the action of a variety of environmental stimuli and of their intrinsic interactions. The latter are typically cooperative, in the sense that the activity of a single animal increases nonlinearly with the number of already active ones.