A biosensor developed by researchers at the National Nanotechnology Laboratory in Campinas, Brazil, has been proven capable of detecting molecules associated with neurodegenerative diseases and some types of cancer. The device is a single-layer organic nanometer-scale transistor on a glass slide. It contains the reduced form of the peptide glutathione, which reacts in a specific way when it comes into contact with the enzyme glutathione S-transferase, linked to Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and breast cancer, among other diseases.

Discovering that the association between trees and two classes of underground mycorhizzal fungi can be detected from space is a huge leap forward in our ability to understand how forests change on a large scale because the fungi are indicators of forest nutrient uptake.

Researchers from Brazil and the US mapped and characterized an extensive reef system in an unlikely area of the Brazilian coast. Oil and gas companies operate close to the reefs.

The International Potato Center, global seed potato company HZPC and the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture have announced a new partnership. Their joint aim is to develop better potatoes for tropical and subtropical conditions.

Seven fossil teeth exposed by the Panama Canal expansion project are first evidence of a monkey on the North American continent before the Isthmus of Panama connected it to South America 3.5 million years ago. A team including Carlos Jaramillo, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, published this discovery online in the journal, Nature today.

Brazilian researchers from the D'Or Institute for Research and Education (IDOR) and Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) have demonstrated the harmful effects of ZIKA virus (ZIKV) in human neural stem cells, neurospheres and brain organoids. Since ZIKV has been gradually established as a direct cause of central nervous system malformations, this study help to elucidate the etiological nature of the recently increasing number of microcephaly cases in Brazil.

Numbers of the world's largest primate, Grauer's gorilla, found only in the conflict-plagued Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), declined calamitously in 20 years according to a report co-authored by a Smithsonian scientist and published by the Wildlife Conservation Society, Flora and Fauna International and the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature. From a 1998 estimate of 17,000 individuals, the population has dropped by 77 percent. Fewer than 3,800 individuals remain.