Merchant knew from what he had seen that the alligator's immune system far surpassed that of humans, so he began investigating the "mechanism of action" behind this phenomenon.

Experiments using alligator serum (a component of the blood that is left after the coagulants and the blood cells are removed) gave an indication that he was looking in the right direction.

A simple experiment of placing a drop of the serum in a petri dish of bacteria demonstrated its powerful effect as an antibiotic by killing all the bacteria exposed to it.

Unfortunately, because of the size of its cells, the serum cannot be safely injected into human blood veins at the risk of anaphylactic shock -- the body would recognize it as foreign, triggering a massive allergic response.

However, a drug synthesized to match the serum's chemical makeup could still have topical applications including treatment of burn victims, diabetics, AIDS patients and others who suffer from skin lesions that are difficult to heal, Merchant said.

But the research wasn't over there -- they just needed to go deeper.

"We turned our interest to the white blood cells," he said.

They found that a tiny protein or peptide within the white blood cells also acts as a powerful antibiotic.

He and his researchers found these proteins have a strong positive charge. Bacteria have a strong negative charge on their outer wall, so the two are drawn together like magnets.

They bind by electric attraction, and the protein kills the bacteria by rupturing its outer wall.

Merchant believes this is a breakthrough that could lead to "a whole new class of drugs with an entirely different mechanism," though he cautioned "this isn't without potential problems."

A dozen poisonous snakes were spotted at the Kalyani Stadium, the venue at which Mohan Bagan beat Arrows 3-2 during an I-league fixture on Sunday.

None of the players or the ball boys were bitten but the snakes were spotted near the dressing rooms and on the field of play after full-time.

Officials of the Kalyani Municipality ensured that the snakes were removed from the stadium.

The All India Football Federation (AIFF), however, is unlikely to ban the Kalyani Stadium as an I-League venue.

The limosa harlequin frog (Atelopus limosus), an endangered species native to Panama, now has a new lease on life. The Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project is successfully breeding the chevron-patterned form of the species in captivity for the first time. The rescue project is raising nine healthy frogs from one mating pair and hundreds of tadpoles from another pair.

"These frogs represent the last hope for their species," said Brian Gratwicke, international coordinator for the project and a research biologist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, one of six project partners. "This new generation is hugely inspiring to us as we work to conserve and care for this species and others."

Nearly one-third of the world's amphibian species are at risk of extinction. The rescue project aims to save priority species of frogs in Panama, one of the world's last strongholds for amphibian biodiversity. While the global amphibian crisis is the result of habitat loss, climate change and pollution, a fungal disease, chytridiomycosis, is likely responsible for as many as 94 of 120 frog species disappearing since 1980.

Between its facilities at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Gamboa, Panama, and the El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center in El Valle, Panama, the rescue project currently cares for 55 adult limosa harlequin frogs of the chevron-patterned form and 10 of the plain-color form. The project has had limited success breeding the plain-color form of this species, and has successfully bred other challenging endangered species, including crowned treefrogs (Anotheca spinosa), horned marsupial frogs (Gastrotheca cornuta) and toad mountain harlequin frogs (A. certus).

The new specimen was found at the museum in Japan, and its curator contacted Kanto Nishikawa, one of the researchers involved in the study. Initial observations indicated nothing out of the ordinary, but after closer inspection, the team realized that its morphology didn't conform to any known species. They subsequently performed genetic analysis which confirmed the newt as a new species: Tylototriton ziegleri— Ziegler's crocodile newt—after the prominent German researcher Thomas Ziegler, who has contributed greatly to the study and conservation of amphibians and reptiles in Vietnam.

In a study, published in the journal Diversity and Distributions, the team led by PhD researcher Paul Duckett, used a new modelling technique to predict if the Australian gecko; the Tree Dtella (Gehyra variegata), could successfully move from one location to another as climates changed.

While previous studies have focused on predicting those regions that will become suitable for species to live in the near future, this research has measured a species ability to even make the journey in time

"The real question isn't where they are going but can individuals actually reach a suitable new home before it becomes critical to their survival," says Duckett.

An international team of scientists led by Dr Kate Sanders from the University of Adelaide, and including Dr Mike Lee from the South Australian Museum, has uncovered how some sea snakes have developed 'shrunken heads' - or smaller physical features than their related species.

Their research is published today in the journal Molecular Ecology.

A large head - "all the better to eat you with" - would seem to be indispensable to sea snakes, which typically have to swallow large spiny fish. However, there are some circumstances where it wouldn't be very useful: sea snakes that feed by probing their front ends into narrow, sand eel burrows have evolved comically small heads.

The team has shown normal-shaped sea snakes can evolve such "shrunken heads" very rapidly. This process can lead to speciation (one species splitting into two).

Pterosaurs once roamed the Earth during the Cretaceous, living worldwide in all kinds of different environments. The reptiles had the ability of powered flight--actively gaining height and taking off from the ground rather than just gliding or soaring. In addition, pterosaurs had short, fur-like reptilian "hair" which has been observed in the soft tissue preserved in some fossils. They ranged greatly in size, with some of them possessing a wingspan that stretched up to 42 feet. The recent find, though, only had about a two-foot wingspan and was small-bodied. Yet even so, it lived alongside the much larger ornithocheirids and istiodactylids.

The new species that was discovered is now named Vectidraco daisymorrisae. "Vectidraco" means "dragon from the Isle of Wight" while "daisymorrisae" honors the founder, Daisy Morris.

Suddenly, "de-extinction" is all the rage.

"Reviving Extinct Species" is the cover subject in the current National Geographic, which tells us that restoring creatures like the woolly mammoth to the earth "is no longer a fantasy" — and then asks, "Is it a good idea?"

Not coincidentally, a special TEDx Conference took place last Friday at National Geographic's headquarters in Washington, sponsored jointly by the Geographic, the TED organization and an outfit called Revive & Restore, which thinks resurrection biology through gene-splicing and cloning is not only a good idea but a cool one, a great one, whose time has come at last.

In the words of Revive & Restore co-founder Stewart Brand, longtime big thinker on environmental stuff, the TED presentations constituted "the first public discussion of something that's been brewing for a year or two, which is the possibility of bringing back extinct species for real, not in fiction this time."

Two years ago, Mike Archer from the University of New South Wales looked down a microscope and saw that a single fertilised frog egg had divided in two. Then, it did it again. And again. Eventually, the egg produced an embryo containing hundreds of cells.

“There were a lot of hi-fives going around the laboratory,” says Archer.

This might seem like an over-reaction. After all, millions of frog eggs divide into embryos every day, as they have done since before dinosaurs walked the earth. But this egg was special. Archer’s team of scientists had loaded it with the DNA of the southern gastric brooding frog—a bizarre creature that has been extinct for almost 30 years.

The fact that it started to grow into an embryo was a big deal. The fact that it never went further was disappointing, but not unexpected. This is cutting-edge science—cloning techniques put to the purpose of resurrection.

Archer’s goal is simple: To bring the extinct gastric brooding frog back from oblivion and, in doing so, provide hope for the hundreds of other frogs that are heading that way. Getting the embryo was a milestone and Archer is buoyantly optimistic that he’ll cross the finish line soon. Lazarus, he says, will rise again.