Researchers have developed a way to produce ethanol from waste products such as orange peels and newspapers. The approach is 'greener' and less expensive than the current methods available to run vehicles on clean energy and can be applied to several non-food products throughout the United States, including sugarcane, switchgrass and straw.

The new technique uses plant-derived enzyme cocktails to break down orange peels and other waste materials into sugar, which is then fermented into ethanol. The findings are detailed in Plant Biotechnology.

A new study in PNAS of the side-blotched lizard (Uta stansburiana) may bolster the idea that 'morphs', morphologically distinct types often found within species, could be the raw material for speciation.

Previous research has shown that competition among male side-blotched lizards takes the form of a rock-paper-scissors game in which each mating strategy beats and is beaten by one other strategy. Males with orange throats can take territory from blue-throated males because they have more testosterone and body mass. As a result, orange males control large territories containing many females.

People who are usually happy, enthusiastic and content are less likely to develop heart disease than those who tend not to be happy, according to a purely observational study that needs to be confirmed with clinical research.

Over a period of ten years, researchers followed 1,739 healthy adults (862 men and 877 women) who were participating in the 1995 Nova Scotia Health Survey. At the start of the study, published in the European Heart Journal, trained nurses assessed the participants' risk of heart disease and, with both self-reporting and clinical assessment, they measured symptoms of depression, hostility, anxiety and the degree of expression of positive emotions, which is known as "positive affect".

Scientists have known that newly acquired, short-term memories are often fleeting, but a new study of Drosophila in Cell suggests that there is a good reason for that kind of forgetfulness. An active process of erasing memories may be as important as the ability to lay down new memories.

"Learning activates the biochemical formation of memory," says Yi Zhong of Tsinghua University and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. "But you need to remove memories for new information to come in. We've found that forgetting is an active process to remove memory."

A recent study of marine mammals by University of Florida aquatic animal health experts has revealed that dolphins may be the ideal model for studying cervical cancer in humans.

"We discovered that dolphins get multiple infections of apillomaviruses, which are known to be linked with cervical cancer in women," said Hendrik Nollens, a marine mammal biologist and clinical assistant professor at UF's College of Veterinary Medicine today (Feb. 18) at the annual meeting of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science. "Dolphins are the only species besides humans that we know of that can harbor coinfections, or infections of multiple papillomavirus types, in the genital mucosa."

 Scientists searching for alternatives to synthetic pesticides say volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by the fungus Muscodor albus may offer a biologically based way to rid certain crops of destructive pests. Reseachers from the USDA's Agriculture Research Service laboratories put the idea to the test in three different studies by pitting Muscodor against potato tuber moths, apple codling moths and Tilletia fungi that cause bunt diseases in wheat.