An ancient kitten-sized predator is one of the smallest species reported in the extinct order Sparassodonta, which were carnivorous marsupials (metatherian mammals, anyway) native to South America lived in Bolivia about 13 million years ago.

The researchers can't name the new species because the specimen lacks well-preserved teeth, which are the only parts preserved in many of its close relatives.

The skull, which would have been a little less than 3 inches long if complete, shows the animal had a very short snout. A socket, or alveolus, in the upper jaw shows it had large, canines, that were round in cross-section much like those of a meat-eating marsupial, called the spotted-tailed quoll, found in Australia today, the researchers said.

When ovarian cancer spreads from the ovaries it almost always does so to a layer of fatty tissue that lines the gut. A new study has found that ovarian cancer cells are more aggressive on these soft tissues due to the mechanical properties of this environment. The finding is contrary to what is seen with other malignant cancer cells that seem to prefer stiffer tissues.

"What we found is that there are some cancer cells that respond to softness as opposed to stiffness," said Michelle Dawson, an assistant professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "Ovarian cancer cells that are highly metastatic respond to soft environments by becoming more aggressive."

Proteins, those workhorses of the cell responsible for almost all biological functions, have to be adaptable and that means chain-like molecules must engage in an intricate three-dimensional conformation.

This process - protein folding - is one of the most important in biology. In the event of improper folding, proteins can't perform their duties and may even lump together in aggregates, which can lead to severe diseases like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's.

To prevent that, specialized proteins, so-called chaperones, help other proteins to adopt their proper shape. 

If you ask rural people in the American east which is more damaging to the ecology, coyotes or deer, it may be a toss-up. But that doesn't mean it is a good idea for one to just take the other out.

In most states, deer population management also brings revenue benefits - hunting licenses and meat - but coyotes aren't hunted. They haven't been arrived that long. Coyotes -- Canis latrans -- have long inhabited the American West but are a relatively recent arrival to eastern North America, appearing first in the region in noticeable numbers in the 1970s. They have already become a significant source of deer mortality and most often prey on whitetail fawns in the earliest months of their lives.

Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory have found that certain enzymes responsible for desaturating fatty acids, the building blocks of oils, can link up to efficiently pass intermediate products from one enzyme to another.

Getting plants to accumulate high levels of more healthful polyunsaturated fatty acids, or unusual fatty acids that could be used as raw materials in place of petroleum-derived chemicals in industrial processes, are a few possible outcomes.

Metabolic channeling

A statistical modeling paper has projected rates of obesity and overweight status in both male and female Europeans for 2030 and found that, when it comes to being fat, not all 53 Euro-region countries are equal.

The statistical model incorporated all available data on body mass index (BMI) and obesity/overweight trends in all 53 of the WHO's Euro-region countries. Their model "enables obesity trends to be forecast forward providing estimates of the dynamic epidemiology of the disease".

Definitions were based on the WHO's standard cut=offs - healthy weight (BMI ≤24.99 kg/m²), overweight and obesity combined (BMI ≥25 kg/m²) and obesity (≥30 kg/m²).