Helium rain on Jupiter explains lack of neon in atmosphere

When the Galileo probe descended through Jupiter's atmosphere in 1995, it found neon to be one-tenth as abundant as predicted. This unexpected finding has led two UC Berkeley researchers to propose that this is due to a rain of helium that depletes Jupiter's layers of neon as well as helium.

Genome sequenced for amoeba that flips into free-swimming cell

Scientists have sequenced the genome of a weird creature that exists as an amoeba until the food runs out, then turns into a two-tailed swimmer to find new hunting grounds. The organism, called Naegleria, is an early eurkaryote ? a cell with a nucleus and internal organs ? and could shed light on the origin of complex cells like those in humans.

Pesticide atrazine can turn male frogs into females

The herbicide atrazine, one of the world's most widely used pesticides, screws up the sex lives of adult male frogs, emasculating three-quarters of them and turning one in 10 into females, according to a new study by UC Berkeley's Tyrone Hayes.