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Some dinosaurs were really huge. And now we may have a better way to estimate just how heavy these giants were. Researchers have developed a method to weigh dinosaurs, based on laser scans of their skeletons.

In the hostile environment of a bubbling volcanic hot spring, a team of researchers at Portland State University in Oregon has discovered a new viral genome that seems to be the product of recombination between a DNA virus and an RNA virus -- a natural chimaera not seen before. Their findings

A lot of proposed synthetic biology applications can seem pretty out there, but some are really out there . NASA is currently advertising open postdoctoral positions in synthetic biology, with particular emphasis on food production in space.

When Mexican tetra fish moved into dark caves long ago, they evolved to deal with the dark by becoming albino…and going blind. And new research shows that the changes various cavefish populations went through occurred repeatedly--a massive, textbook example of convergent evolution. The study is in the journal BioMed Central Evolutionary Biology

Apple has demonstrated again and again its ability to create and reinvent content marketplaces by designing irresistible devices and platforms--will educational content be its next conquest? When I was in college 10 years ago, my biology textbook was a $300, four-pound monstrosity with a shiny CD-ROM shrink-wrapped to the front.

True to their name, boa constrictors squeeze the life out of their prey. But how does a boa know it's snuffed out a rat? The snake listens for a heartbeat.

Dung beetles dance to check their navigation.

We "naked apes" aren't as hirsute as our primate cousins. We still have an ape-like density of hair follicles--but we sprout out peach fuzz, instead of a thick coat. Those downy hairs may be more than an evolutionary leftover, though

In this extended version of the talk from our new issue, we speak with Marianne Wu, a partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures. "A lot of people assume that green biofuels mean higher prices or worse performance," Wu says.

When cataloging images of tuberculosis cells became too daunting for a research team at Harvard, they turned to crowdsourcing, and discovered that the masses have the ability to dramatically change the course of scientific research. Sarah Fortune, a tuberculosis (TB) researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health, had thousands of images of multiplying TB cells piling up in her lab. Her team of graduate students were inundated: all the pictures had to be labeled; some probably held the key to combating a deadly bacteria that infects one-third of the global population, mostly in poor parts of Asia, Africa and South America

I promised I’d cover all the winners, and here we go! Beginning with this year’s IgNobel prize in Biology, which goes to a study on the Australian Jewel Beetle. Poor Australian Jewel Beetle. For his is a tragic story of mistaken identities and forbidden lust.

By Melissa Gaskill of Nature magazine Heart-breaking pictures of seabirds covered in black crude oil, arresting as they are, can miss the hidden story of an oil spill's impact on wildlife. Exposure to even tiny concentrations of the chemicals present in oil can also cause harmful biological effects that usually go unnoticed, according to a study published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .

One of the world's oldest publishing companies brought in a ringer to revolutionize the way the company does business.

In the future, students will use social networks for more than planning keggers. If Groupon's backers have anything to say about it

Former major league pitcher Antonio Alfonseca had six fingers on each hand. One of his coaches was once asked about the consequences of Alfonseca having six fingers and replied, “He can’t flip you off.” Think about it.