From the slime coating slugs to the saliva in our mouths, many slippery bodily fluids contain mucus. So how did this marvel of biology evolve?

Researchers generated rat sperm cells inside sterile mice using a technique called blastocyst complementation. The advance appears August 4 in the journal Stem Cell Reports.

It is now possible to deliver therapeutics based on short interfering RNAs to hepatocytes; however, new delivery solutions are necessary to target additional organs. In a new report now published in Nature Biotechnology, a team of researchers including Kirk M. Brown, Jayaprakash K. Nair, and Maja M. Manas, led by Vasant Jadhav at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Cambridge MA, U.S., discussed the safe conjugation of 2'-O-hexadecyl (C16) to small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) for potent and durable silencing […]

A study led by scientists at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and University of Kent uncovers how the genome three-dimensional structure of male germ cells determines how genomes evolve over time. Published in Nature Communications and carried out in rodent species, the study shows that the distinctive events occurring during egg and sperm cell production have a different impact on genome evolution and opens new research paths into the genetic origin of genome structure in all […]

Social structure is an important aspect of species' biology. Having a pecking order and male or female territoriality can help species thrive.

New ancient DNA analysis has shed light on how the black rat, blamed for spreading Black Death, dispersed across Europe—revealing that the rodent colonized the continent on two occasions in the Roman and Medieval periods.

As I write this article, a furry blur of a rodent has just scampered across the room and under the couch. It's autumn in Australia and, as air temperatures plunge outside, rodents start seeking the warmth and plentiful food inside our houses.

It's no secret that jet lag and night-shift work can wreak havoc on the way our body's internal clock syncs up our daily wake-sleep cycle, known as circadian rhythm, but now researchers say they are a step closer to understanding how the brain creates behavioral rhythms optimized for diurnal, rather than nocturnal, life.

A study published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science reveals the presence of murine coronavirus—the murine hepatitis virus or M-CoV—in mice of the Canary archipelago (Spain) that could have reached the islands by maritime transport from the European continent. This is the first ecoepidemiological study to examine the presence of coronaviruses that circulate in mice and rats of the natural and urban environment of the islands of La Palma, El Hierro, Tenerife and Lanzarote.

Monarch butterflies and their close relatives thrive on poisonous milkweed, thanks to genetic mutations that block the effects of the plant's toxins while allowing the poisons to accumulate in the caterpillar or adult insects as deterrents to hungry predators.