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The oceans teemed with life 600 million years ago, but the simple, soft-bodied creatures would have been hardly recognizable as the ancestors of nearly all animals on Earth today. Then something happened. Over several tens of millions of years — a relative blink of an eye in geologic terms — a burst of evolution led to a flurry of diversification and increasing complexity, including the expansion of multicellular organisms and the appearance of the first shells and skeletons.

Chemists and biologists from the University of Bristol have finally cracked one of the longest standing chemical mysteries. In a paper published today in PNAS, the team demonstrate exactly how an unusual class of compounds known as tropolones are synthesised in fungi. In 1942, an 'unidentifiable' aromatic compound known as stipitatic acid was first isolated from fungi.

Worms are important decomposers in soil and are great for fishing, but in humans, the slimy wrigglers spell trouble. Hookworms, whipworms, Ascaris, Guinea worms and trichina worms are just a few parasitic nematodes that infect some 2 billion people. Now, researchers have discovered a class of small molecules that all nematodes use to signal such processes as growing, developing, mating and moving toward or away from an area.

All animals seem to have ways of exchanging information—monkeys vocalize complex messages, ants create scent trails to food, and fireflies light up their bellies to attract mates. Yet, despite the fact that nematodes, or roundworms, are among the most abundant animals on the planet, little is known about the way they network.

What happens to a stem cell at the molecular level that causes it to become one type of cell rather than another? At what point is it committed to that cell fate, and how does it become committed? The answers to these questions have been largely unknown. But now, in studies that mark a major step forward in our understanding of stem cells' fates, a team of researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has traced the stepwise developmental process that ensures certain stem cells will become'T cells—cells of the immune system that help destroy invading pathogens.

Some materials, by their nature, do what we want them to do - notably, the ubiquitous, semiconducting silicon found in almost every electronic device. But sometimes, naturally occurring materials need a little nudge - or in the case of recent Cornell research, a twist - to make them useful. Assistant professor of applied and engineering physics Craig Fennie and Drexel University's James Rondinelli have published a method for turning a class of ceramic materials called perovskites into a material that's ferroelectric.

Researchers from UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have found that by administering a PET scan to individuals with soft-tissue sarcomas after just a single cycle of neoadjuvant chemotherapy, they can predict increased survival in these patients. Prior research by this multidisciplinary team of physician-scientists had shown that a combined PET/CT scan using a glucose uptake probe called FDG allowed them to determine the pathologic response of patients' tumors after the first dose of chemotherapy drugs.

For catalysts in fuel cells and electrodes in batteries, engineers would like to manufacture metal films that are porous, to make more surface area available for chemical reactions, and highly conductive, to carry off the electricity. The latter has been a frustrating challenge. But Cornell chemists have now developed a way to make porous metal films with up to 1,000 times the electrical conductivity offered by previous methods.

For a century, scientists have assumed that the Earth has same chemical make-up as the sun. But this belief has been challenged by scientists at The Australian National University. Professors Ian Campbell and Hugh O'Neill from the Research School of Earth Sciences at ANU said their research shakes up our understanding of the Earth's chemistry - right to the core.

A new study by researchers from Yale and Johns Hopkins reveals the molecular pathway by which the body's inflammatory immune response may trigger its own inhibition, protecting tumor cells from destruction and allowing the growth of melanoma - the deadliest form of skin cancer. The study currently appears in Science Translational Medicine.

Physicists at the University of California, San Diego have discovered patterns which underlie the properties of a new state of matter. the scientists describe the emergence of "spontaneous coherence," "spin textures" and "phase singularities" when excitons-the bound pairs of electrons and holes that determine the optical properties of semiconductors and enable them to function as novel optoelectronic devices-are cooled to near absolute zero.

UCLA researchers are now able to peer deep within the world's tiniest structures to create three-dimensional images of individual atoms and their positions. Their research, published March 22 , presents a new method for directly measuring the atomic structure of nanomaterials. "This is the first experiment where we can directly see local structures in three dimensions at atomic-scale resolution — that's never been done before," said Jianwei (John) Miao, a professor of physics and astronomy and a researcher with the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA.

Gold nanoparticles can be used as delivery vehicles for platinum anticancer drugs, improving targeting and uptake into cells, according to research published in this month's edition of the international journal Inorganic Chemistry . Researchers at the University of Sydney's Faculty of Pharmacy investigated the appropriateness of different sized gold nanoparticles as components of platinum-based drug delivery systems such as cisplatin.

As nanotechnology becomes ever more ubiquitous, researchers are using it to make medical diagnostics smaller, faster and cheaper in order to better diagnose diseases, learn more about inherited traits and more. But as sensors get smaller, measuring them becomes more difficult; there is always a tradeoff between how long any measurement takes to make and how precise it is.

Methanol, water and a copper-zinc catalyst may be used to produce carbon monoxide depleted hydrogen, a power source for PEM (polymer-electrolyte-membrane) fuel cells, with high efficiency. By identifying the copper-zinc phase, which generates particularly clean hydrogen, Innsbruck scientists have cleared a hurdle for cutting-edge energy use.

Might the "Twinkie defense" have a scientific foundation after all? Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have shown - by each of a range of measures, in men and women of all ages, in Caucasians and minorities - that consumption of dietary trans fatty acids (dTFAs) is associated with irritability and aggression.

CISA3 researcher and National Geographic Fellow Maurizio Seracini (foreground) and his team view footage captured by the endoscope behind the Vasari wall. All photos by Dave Yoder.

Michael King leads journal on nanotechnology in medicine Michael R. King, associate professor of biomedical engineering, is editor-in-chief of the first scientific journal focused on nanotubes, nanorods and nanowires applied to medicine and biology. The online, peer-reviewed journal Nanotube Therapy launched in March through the open-access publisher Versita.

A new study in Science reveals that honeybees that scout for new food sources or nest sites have patterns of gene activity in their brains known to be associated with novelty-seeking in humans. The study found that certain bees in a colony show consistently high levels of exploratory behavior. To determine the molecular basis for this tendency to scout, the research looked across the bees' genome for differences in the activity of genes in the brains of scouts and non-scouts.

Scientists have produced a previously unseen uranium molecule, in a move that could improve clean-up of nuclear waste. The distinctive butterfly-shaped compound is similar to radioactive molecules that scientists had proposed to be key components of nuclear waste. However, these were thought too unstable to exist for long.