A new study published in Nature Conservation reveals that threatened amphibian species are being sold under incorrect names in online marketplaces. Using DNA barcoding, researchers discovered that frogs advertised as the commonly farmed species Chinese edible frogs (Hoplobatrachus chinensis) were actually Chinese spiny frogs (Quasipaa spinosa), species classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN. Because these frogs look visually similar, this misidentification allows protected wild populations to be inadvertently or illegally exploited without being recorded.

An investigational drug called davunetide, sprayed into the nose, reaches the brain in different amounts depending on biological sex and, in females, on the phase of the reproductive cycle. Working in mice and then in a small group of healthy adults, researchers at Tel Aviv University found that female mice took up more drug into the head region when estrogen was highest, during proestrus and estrus. In people, women trended toward higher peak plasma concentrations while men held the drug longer. The authors argue that averaging across sexes can hide a real drug effect, and that timing and hormones belong at the center of how brain therapies are designed and dosed.

A newly established alliance, comprising leading researchers and conservation experts, has mobilised to safeguard the Atlantic Ocean's leatherback turtle populations.

Can a snake in Thailand influence the evolution of a snake in the Philippines even if the two species never cross paths? According to a new study, the answer may be yes. The research suggests that migratory predators can act as evolutionary “messengers”, carrying their avoidance behavior across continents and linking the fates of species separated by thousands of kilometers. The findings challenge a longstanding assumption in mimicry theory and open the door to a hidden world of long-distance evolutionary relationships connecting distant ecosystems through migration.

A new single-protein analysis technique gives researchers an unprecedented ability to study proteins called scramblases, which have critical roles in biology. The development of the new technique, in a study led by investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine and Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, expands the toolkit available to cell biologists and biophysicists and could someday be useful in devising new strategies against multiple diseases.