WASHINGTON, Oct 2, 2008 (AFP) - Researchers on Thursday reported inroads in an ambitious project to map the genetic sequence of wheat, which ultimately could lead to the creation of more fertile and disease-resistant wheat strains.

WASHINGTON, Sept 18, 2008 (AFP) - Hundreds of new marine species have been found on Australia's coral reefs, surprising an international team of biologists who announced details of their findings here Thursday.

PARIS, Sept 16, 2008 (AFP) - It was staring them in the face, but somehow generations of marine biologists have failed to notice that a lot of fish in the sea glow a fluorescent red, according to a study published Tuesday.

WASHINGTON, September 10, 2008 (AFP) - Miniscule eight-legged invertebrate creatures known as 'water bears' can survive the vacuum and radiation of space, according to research published Tuesday in a US journal.

PARIS, August 31, 2008 (AFP) - Among biological scientists, they are the true nomenklatura, a small and far-flung tribe dedicated to the coherent naming of all living things, past and present.

DUBLIN, August 28, 2008 (AFP) - A new species of a parasitic wasp with a grisly life cycle that involves laying its eggs inside flies has been found in Ireland, Galway University said on Thursday.

The chance discovery was made by Welsh researcher Chris Williams who is studying the life-cycle of tiny snail-killing marsh flies in County Mayo in the west of the country.

Researchers say they have figured out why sea turtles that normally feed and breed in shallow water ...

MIAMI, July 8, 2008 (AFP) - Global warming and pollution are decimating coral reefs around the world, with only 25 percent in good health in the Caribbean Sea, US experts warned Tuesday.

CHICAGO, June 9, 2008 (AFP) - A genetic propensity for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder may actually help people thrive in nomadic environments, according to a study of Kenyan tribesmen published Tuesday.

She is the oldest mother of any species ever found, a 380-million-year-old fish immortalised in a fossil while still attached to her offspring by an umbilical cord.

TOKYO, May 27, 2008 (AFP) - A Japanese brewery Tuesday said it was planning the first 'space beer,' using offspring of barley once stored at the International Space Station.

Researchers said the project was part of efforts to prepare for a future in which humans spend extended periods of time in space -- and might like a cold beer after a space walk.

PARIS, May 7, 2008 (AFP) - Arguably the oddest beast in Nature's menagerie, the platypus looks as if were assembled from spare parts left over after the animal kingdom was otherwise complete.

Now scientists know why. According to a study released Wednesday, the egg-laying critter is a genetic potpourri -- part bird, part reptile and part lactating mammal.

WASHINGTON, April 29, 2008 (AFP) - Scientists discovered legless lizard, a dwarf woodpecker and another 12 suspected new species in Brazil's fast-disappearing Cerrado grasslands, an environmental group said Tuesday.

JAKARTA, April 11, 2008 (AFP) - The discovery of a rare species of Indonesian frog that breathes without lungs could shed light on how evolution works, a scientist said Friday.

A dissection of the frog, found on Borneo island last August, showed it breathed entirely through its skin, biologist David Bickford told AFP.

PARIS, April 7, 2008 (AFP) - Johnny may be hardwired to play with toy guns and dump trucks after all.

As for his little sister's preference for Barbie and Beanie Babies, chalk it up to DNA, say scientists.

The notion that children's taste in toys might somehow be genetically determined has long been disparaged by psychologists, pooh-poohed as unscientific, sexist or both.

WASHINGTON, March 18, 2008 (AFP) - Life, as it evolves, becomes increasingly complex and rarely less so, a study of evolution by British and Canadian researchers has found.

PARIS, March 14, 2008 (AFP) - Hawks and eagles change the shape of their wings as they dart after a prey while predatory fish use their fins to close on their quarry -- but how do alligators do it?

The answer: the fearsome reptiles use their lungs as movable internal flotation devices, enabling them to dive, veer and barrell roll through water with nary a ripple.

PARIS, March 12, 2008 (AFP) - Robots of the future may able to climb up and down walls and zigzag across ceilings -- and the cockroach will be the one we should thank.

PARIS, Feb 27, 2008 (AFP) - Barroom advice on how to score with the ladies would probably never include the strategy that works best for at least one species of male spider: playing dead.

WASHINGTON, Feb 27, 2008 (AFP) - US researchers have sequenced the corn genome almost in its entirety, a development that could help improve crops to meet growing global needs for food and fuel, a US university has announced.

Corn, also known as maize, is the world's top cereal crop followed by rice and wheat, and the second of those to have its genome sequenced, after rice.

PARIS, Feb 25, 2008 (AFP) - Scientists have discovered Antarctic krill living and feeding at crushing depths of 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) in waters around the Antarctic Peninsula, according to a study released Monday.

Until now the shrimp-like crustaceans were thought to only live within several hundred metres (yards) of the ocean surface, the study said.

PARIS, Feb 4, 2008 (AFP) - Scientists have found more than 500 genes that account for variations across human populations including skin color, height, and vulnerability to disease, according to a study released Sunday.

WASHINGTON, Nov 2, 2007 (AFP) - Researchers in Britain discovered a protein's molecular signal that apparently plays a key role in allowing newts -- which are amphibians -- to regrow severed limbs, a report in the journal Science says.

PARIS, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - Scientists have uncovered what might be called the law of language evolution: the more a word is used, the less likely it is to change over time.

Like genes, words undergo ruthless survival-of-the-fittest pressure and those which are less central to daily life are subject to mutation, according to their study.

Their research applies mathematical precision to four very different Indo-European languages -- but if it holds for other languages as well, it would be a milestone in understanding one of humanity's defining attributes.

TOKYO, Sept 27, 2007 (AFP) - Japanese researchers have succeeded in producing see-through frogs, letting them observe organs, blood vessels and eggs under the skin without performing dissections.

'You can see through the skin how organs grow, how cancer starts and develops,' said the lead researcher Masayuki Sumida, professor at the Institute for Amphibian Biology of state-run Hiroshima University.

PARIS, Sept 24, 2007 (AFP) - From post-coital cannibalism to love at first sight, the sex life of the African jumping spider is full of surprises, according to a new study.

But none is more unexpected than this, say researchers who studied the blood-gorging Evarcha culicivora up close and personal: while virgin females are attracted to meatier mates, a bit of experience sees them switch to smaller partners.

SCHULMAN GROVE, California, Sept 22, 2007 (AFP) - They have neither the soaring majesty nor the celebrity of the giant redwood, but in one respect the bristlecone pine is the undisputed king of trees: longevity.

Scattered on a remote mountainside of eastern California, these gnarled, twisted specimens are the oldest living organisms on Earth, the most senior among them some 4,700 years old.

PARIS, Sept 17, 2007 (AFP) - Cyprian honey bees under attack by predator hornets have evolved a grisly and lethal way of fighting back which scientists have called 'asphyxia-balling,' according to a study published Monday.

An intruding hornet looking for a snack in a beehive may suddenly find itself enveloped inside a buzzing ball of black-and-yellow worker drones. The bees squeeze in tightly around the abdomen -- where hornets breath -- until the would be aggressor dies of suffocation.

PARIS, Aug 13, 2007 (AFP) - Forget jutting jaws, pheromones or hypnotic stares. What has made men sexy since they lived in caves could well be a foreshortened face, according to a new study.

Theories abound as to why humans are attracted to each other, and on the role facial features might have played in the human evolutionary saga.