What does the painter Théodore Géricault have to do with today's science? What obscure connections link the genius of French Romanticism with the scientific method? Why have his portraits influenced the development of modern neurology? What has survived from those post-Napoleonic investigations?

A new microbial study explored the bacterial diversity of the Tabernas Desert located in the south-eastern Spain. Using simple tweaks of the traditional bacterial culture methods, the researchers isolated more than 250 bacterial strains of which 80 could be possible new bacteria species.

Researchers from the Institute for Integrative Systems Biology (I2SysBio, a joint centre of the University of Valencia and the CSIC), have discovered a new gene family of antimicrobial peptides (small proteins) –the Blattellicins– in the German cockroach