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Researchers at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, have designed a unique computer model to understand how cancer-causing proteins behave, which is based on how social networking works. Comparing the proteins inside cells to members of an enormous social network and mapping the ways they interact, the researchers predicted which proteins will be targeted with drugs. Read more about their research here.

An international team of researchers belonging to Japan and the US studying American alligators found the presence of TRPV4, a thermosensitive protein, in alligator embryos. Found in the gonads of the embryos, this protein plays a crucial role in influencing the sex of the growing alligators. Read more about their research here.

Certain species of bats have been known to harbor the Ebola virus. According to a study led by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU-Boulder) and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), the Ebola virus infects the host cell by binding to a host cell receptor called NPC1. To understand how this happens, the researchers exposed cells from four types of African bats to various filoviruses, including the Ebola virus. Read more about their research here.

Typical sleep patterns in mammals are composed of two phases: non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep or dreaming sleep. Researchers from Bern wanted to understand the mechanisms that help the brain switch between the two patterns. They identified a new neural circuit between hypothalamus and thalamus that have been associated with electroencephalogram rhythms during sleep. Read more about their research here.

Earlier this year, a team of researchers at John Hopkins University published a paper which suggested that random mutations in DNA had a significant role to play in cancer development. These findings were popularly interpreted to mean that “bad luck,” more than any other causative factor, leads to cancer. This has sparked a debate among the experts in the field. Read more about this here.

Although reseatchers have known about the phenomenon of 'inattentional deafness,' the exact reasons behind it were not known. A team of researchers from University College London conducted a study on how concentrating on a visual task renders people temporarily deaf to the surrounding sounds. Read more about their research here.

Researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Germany have developed a new light sheet microscope using which they have been able to view the earliest stages of cell division. Jan Ellenberg, who led the team, explained that the microscope enabled them to view how the first cell in a mouse embryo divided and developed into multiple cells to the stage where it is developed enough to get attached to the mother’s uterus. Read more about their research here.

Diamond is considered to be the hardest material known to man. However, a newly discovered substance named Q-carbon has claimed the title of being the hardest material formed from carbon. A team of researchers at North Carolina State University, headed by Jagdish Narayan, focused a very short pulse of laser light onto carbon for 200 nanoseconds and then cooled it down, a process that is called quenching. This yielded minuscule synthetic diamond “seeds” of Q-carbon from which the researchers were able to make gems. Read more about their research here.

Nav1.7 plays an important role in pain pathways, and individuals born with non-functioning Nav1.7 fail to experience pain. Although scientists have developed drugs that would block Nav1.7 in an attempt to block pain, they have met with little success. Researchers from University College London did further research on designing a new treatment for eliminating the feeling of pain. Read more about their research here.

It is believed that appendix is a vestigial organ and its removal is one of the most commonly performed surgeries. However, two research groups headed by Professor Gabrielle Belz of Melbourne's Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, and Professor Eric Vivier at the Centre d'Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy, France, believe that a healthy appendix might have the potential of saving a person’s life. Read more about their research here.