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by Chloe McIver of Nature magazine Turtles should sit on the same branch of the tree of life as lizards, according to a genetic analysis that could clear up a long-standing mystery over the creature's origin. Palaeontologists have long used morphological data, obtained by looking closely at the physical characteristics of fossils and living relatives, to show the evolutionary relationship between different species.

By Nic Fleming of Nature magazine The movement of cholesterol in and out of cells takes much longer than previously thought, according to new measurements of the phenomenon in artificial cell membranes. [More]

By Eric Hand of Nature magazine As the space shuttle glides through its final week, another arm of the US space program faces a bleak future. [More]

The current issue of Nature has a great feature about how mathematical inventions and discoveries often find unexpected applications, sometimes decades after their first appearance.

By Katharine Sanderson of Nature magazine Babies who were exposed to certain organic pollutants in the womb are at a highly increased risk of neural tube defects leading to conditions such as spina bifida, according to researchers in China. Neural tube defects, in which the spinal cord, the brain or their coverings fail to develop completely, arise very early in pregnancy and affect more than 320,000 infants worldwide every year.

Nuclear fission powers the movement of Earth's continents and crust, a consortium of physicists and other scientists is now reporting, confirming long-standing thinking on this topic. Using neutrino detectors in Japan and Italy--the Kamioka Liquid-Scintillator Antineutrino Detector (KamLAND) and the Borexino Detector--the scientists arrived at their conclusion by measuring the flow of the antithesis of these neutral particles as they emanate from our planet. Their results are detailed July 17 in Nature Geoscience .

By Ewen Callaway of Nature magazine Cyclist Borut Bozic drew his hands to his chest with a look of joy, disbelief and exhaustion after defeating some of the world's best sprinters in the Swiss village of Tobel.

By James Mitchell Crow of Nature magazine It might be among the hardest materials known, but place a diamond in a patch of sunlight and it will start to lose atoms, say a team of physicists in Australia. [More]

A new report says Millennials like to spend money, and lots of it.

By Emma Marris of Nature magazine On 12 July, the US government agency that administers the Endangered Species Act came to an agreement with a wildlife group that has sued them numerous times over the past decade. [More]

Escaped GM salmon could breed and pass on their genes in the wild--and those genes could cause weak salmon that eventually die off. The GM salmon companies say they have a solution to keep their fish sterile, but remember: Nature finds a way

By Alla Katsnelson of Nature magazine When electrical rhythms in the heart go haywire, applying a strong electric shock to the chest can set them straight. [More]

By Ewen Callaway pf Nature magazine Stored inside Craig Venter's genome are clues to the history of humankind, including global migrations and population crashes. [More]

By Meredith Wadman of Nature magazine The boy was perhaps seven or eight, although he could have been older: among other things, the disease that afflicts him stunts growth.

By Ron Cowen of Nature magazine The Dawn spacecraft had a difficult birth: it was threatened by cost overruns and technical concerns, cancelled, reinstated and scaled down. [More]