The onset of schizophrenia is not easy to predict. Although it is associated with as many as 14 genes in the human genome, the prior presence of schizophrenia in the family is not enough to determine whether one will succumb to the mind-altering condition. The disease also has a significant environmental link.

A team of international molecular scientists, led by a Monash University researcher has discovered a new, fast mechanism by which cells communicate change -- for example their location during spreading of a cancer in the human body -- to adjacent cells.

The structure of an entire HIV genome has been decoded for the first time by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The results have widespread implications for understanding the strategies that viruses, like the one that causes AIDS, use to infect humans. The study in Nature also opens the door for further research which could accelerate the development of antiviral drugs.