Italy's government lacks experts to advise it on natural hazards following the conviction last week of six scientists and a government official for advice they gave ahead of the deadly earthquake in L'Aquila in 2009.

At a meeting of vertebrate paleontologists last month, researchers pondered fresh clues about the origins of flight from studies of feathered dinosaurs and baby birds.

Researchers argue that most work on Myc, a gene linked to aggressive cancers, needs to be reevaluated. They say that Myc's cancerous effects are actually much broader, and that a flawed experimental method may have thrown off previous research.