Scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) compared the diets of two caterpillar species, expecting the one that exclusively consumed plants containing toxic chemicals would more easily incorporate toxins into its body than the one with a broad diet. They found the opposite. The new finding, published in the Journal of Chemical Ecology, flies in the face of a long-held theory that specialist insects are better adapted to use toxic plant chemicals than non-specialists.

A new analysis by a group of paleontologists offers a more detailed portrait of one of Brazil’s most interesting fossil species, Australerpeton cosgriffi, a giant relative of modern amphibians that lived during the Permian period 260 million years ago. Despite its link to today’s frogs and salamanders, A. cosgriffi was 2.5 m long and resembles a crocodile, with a long tapering snout and scaly body.

This technological development had the support of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNal) Deputy Rector's Office of Research and the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce who granted the patent. The device was carried out by UNal M.Sc. in Physics and Physics Engineer Jesús David Causado, along with UNal-Medellín School of Physics Professor and Founder and Director of the Photonics and Optoelectronics Research Group Pedro Ignacio Torres Trujillo.

A number of studies conducted at the University of Campinas’s Biology Institute (IB-UNICAMP) in São Paulo State, Brazil, have indicated that oligodendrocyte dysfunction may have a key role in the development of schizophrenia. Oligodendrocytes are specialized brain cells that provide important support for neuronal activity.

The odds of being attacked and castrated by a variety of parasitic flatworms increases for marine horn snails the further they’re found from the tropics. A Smithsonian-led research team discovered this exception to an otherwise globally-observed pattern—usually biodiversity is greatest in the tropics and decreases toward the poles. The study, published in Ecology, makes a case for using host-parasite relationships as a tool to understand why there are typically more species—and more interactions between species—in the tropics than anywhere else in the world.

Ceratobasidium and Tulasnella fungi helped quicken symbiotic sprouting of Colombian vanilla species Vanilla rivasii and V. calyculata, in comparison to in vitro traditional methods which use asymbiotic culture media (without fungi) and which are also more expensive.