Cell Plasticity Gone Wild

Brave New World continues....

Turning skin fibroblasts into neurons without any intermediate embryonic state:

http://tinyurl.com/ygolyg2

“This really blew me off the chair," says one researcher. Indeed.

Remarkable Rotifers

Ed Yong on the incredible bdelloid rotifers who've become famous in recently published research due to their unusual survival/evolutionary strategies:


http://tinyurl.com/ycwm626

...earlier Yong articles on these same teensy critters are listed at end of the above piece.

An Oxymoron Perhaps

 A new "giant virus" (large enough to be seen through a conventional light microscope) has been discovered by French scientists. It is the fifth largest virus thus far found, and a "completely new viral form" at that:

http://www.physorg.com/news179588551.html