Wasps in the genus Spasskia (family: Braconidae) have been found for the first time in China, including a species in that genus which is totally new to science.   

The new species, Spasskia brevicarinata, is very small — male and female adults are less than one centimeter long. It is similar to a previously described species called Spasskia indica, but the ridges on some of its body segments are different.

The species epithet brevicarinata reflects a short ridge on its first tergite, as "brevi" is Latin for short and "carinata" is Latin for ridge.

South of Copenhagen, Danish archaeologists have done something that has not happened in over 60 years - they have found a previously undiscovered Viking fortress.

It will be a surprise to most that Vikings built fortresses at all - they were the people that caused everyone else to build fortresses, who was dangerous enough to raid them? Their fellow berserkers and pirates, of course.

Using new, precise laser measurements of the landscape out curator Nanna Holm of Nanna Holm of The Danish Castle Centre on the trail of the fortress. An almost invisible rise in the field was proved by new measurements to have a clear circular outline. 

A mutation  in a gene called KNSTRN, which is involved in helping cells divide their DNA equally during cell division, is caused by ultraviolet light is likely the driving force behind millions of human skin cancers, according to new research.

Genes that cause cancer when mutated are known as oncogenes. Although KNSTRN hasn't been previously implicated as a cause of human cancers, the research suggests it may be one of the most commonly mutated oncogenes in the world.

A newly developed antifungal named isavuconazole is as effective as voriconazole against invasive mold disease in cancer patients with less adverse effects, according to phase 3 clinical data.

With age, our cells gradually lose their capacity to repair damage, even from normal wear and tear. A new paper discusses why this decline occurs in our skeletal muscle. 

A team led by Dr. Michael Rudnicki, senior scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa, found that as muscle stem cells age, their reduced function is a result of a progressive increase in the activation of a specific signaling pathway. Such pathways transmit information to a cell from the surrounding tissue. The particular culprit identified by Dr. Rudnicki and his team is called the JAK/STAT signalling pathway.

The hygiene hypothesis and its cousins, like that rural settings make children microbiologically stronger, now has a study that vegetarian activists are not going to like: sleeping on animal fur in the first three months of life has been linked to reduced risk of asthma.  

Previous studies have suggested that exposure to a wider range of environments from young age could be protective against asthma and allergies - urban settings have not found that to to be so. But in a new study, researchers investigated children from a city environment who had been exposed to animal skin by sleeping on the material shortly after birth.