Researchers said during a press conference today that they found a strange microbe in Mono Lake in northern California. [ + ]

Thermo Fisher continues to expand into the Australia-New Zealand market through the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire Lomb Scientific. [ + ]

Deakin University and The Energy and Resources Institute of India (TERI) have partnered to open a new bionanotechnology Research Centre in Delhi. [ + ]

Businesses will get more support for research and development under legislation passed by the House of Representatives.

An international community of scientists, the Genomic Standards Consortium, has published a new standard for describing marker genes.

The Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Kim Carr, issued a statement about the passing of Professor Frank Fenner.

Extraterrestrial asteroid particles have been discovered in the sample catcher on board the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa.

The Advisory Council of Intellectual Property (ACIP) is calling for submissions from Australian companies which have collaborated with publicly-funded research organisations (PFROs) as part of a review as to whether intellectual property (IP) rights such as patents and trademarks are a help or a hindrance. [ + ]

Prions, which cause diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), are mysterious things. Andrew Hill’s research into how they spread might lead to new diagnostics and treatments. [ + ]

The S&P/ASX 200 Heathcare Index closed in the black on Friday for the third week in a row, as the wider market slipped for the second week in a row. [ + ]

Beleaguered Australian HIV drug developer Avexa announced this week that it has booked time with the FDA to discuss opportunities for its ATC (apricitibane) program. [ + ]

The University of Technology Sydney has launched the ithree institute, focusing on the understanding and control of infectious diseases in humans and animals. [ + ]

A team of international researchers has published the results of a study showing a connection between erectile dysfunction and increased risk of heart disease. [ + ]

The phenomenon of ‘glycaemic memory’ has long puzzled diabetes clinicians and researchers. Now, researchers at the Baker Heart and International Diabetes Institute (Baker IDI) have made a crucial advance that explains how exposure to high blood-glucose levels drives epigenetic changes that underlie the syndrome. [ + ]

Like a spent fighter coming back from the brink after teetering on the ropes in the dying stages, the federal government’s R&D Tax Credit bill is still standing at the 12th round bell with only one more round to go. [ + ]