My picks from ScienceDaily

Discovery May Help Predict When Toxoplasma Can Be Deadly :

Toxoplasma is arguably the most successful animal parasite on earth: It infects hundreds of species of warm-blooded animals, most notably half of humanity. Its unusual ability to overcome the numerous challenges of infecting and reproducing inside such a wide range of creatures has long intrigued scientists, and now researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have identified two of the proteins critical to its ability to thrive.

One Gene 90 Percent Responsible For Making Common Parasite Dangerous:

More than a decade of searching for factors that make the common parasite Toxoplasma gondii dangerous to humans has pinned 90 percent of the blame on just one of the parasite's approximately 6,000 genes.

Microbe Fixes Nitrogen At A Blistering 92 C, May Offer Clues To Evolution Of Nitrogen Fixation:

A heat-loving archaeon capable of fixing nitrogen at a surprisingly hot 92 degrees Celsius, or 198 Fahrenheit, may represent Earth's earliest lineages of organisms capable of nitrogen fixation, perhaps even preceding the kinds of bacteria today's plants and animals rely on to fix nitrogen.

Wild Tigers Need Cat Food:

A landmark study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) says tigers living in one of India's best-run national parks lose nearly a quarter of their population each year from poaching and natural mortality, yet their numbers remain stable due to a combination of high reproductive rates and abundant prey. The study, which appears in the journal Ecology, underscores the need of maintaining protected areas with high prey densities in an overall tiger conservation strategy, along with anti-poaching efforts and eliminating trade in tiger body parts.

For Crickets, Parasitic Flies Can Stop The Music:

Male crickets draw not only females with their songs but also parasitic flies. The uninvited guests then deposit larvae that burrow into their amorous hosts, grow for about a week and then tear their way out in "Alien" fashion, killing the cricket as they emerge.

Now, University of Florida zoologists have found that the danger posed by the flies has apparently affected when crickets sing. In experiments with Southeastern U.S. field crickets, known scientifically as Gryllus rubens, they discovered that considerably fewer male crickets sing in the autumn when the parasitic flies are abundant. They also found that female crickets are reluctant to approach singing males in the fall, perhaps unknowingly avoiding becoming the target of the flies themselves.

Intelligent Children More Likely To Become Vegetarian:

Recent evidence suggests that vegetarianism may be linked to lower cholesterol levels and a reduced risk of obesity and heart disease. This might help to explain why children who score higher on intelligence tests tend to have a lower risk of coronary heart disease in later life.

Options Improving For Patients With Acromegaly And Gigantism, Says Endocrinology Expert:

Scientific, technological and medical advances made in the past two decades are leading to more definitive diagnoses, earlier and more effective treatment options and better outcomes for patients suffering from a condition called acromegaly, according to an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine and authored by a specialist in endocrinology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.