The H5N1 strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 has been detected in over 700 herds of dairy cows in California, the largest dairy-producing state in the U.S. A study published May 5^th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology led by Seema S. Lakdawala at Emory University School of Medicine, U.S. and Jason Lombard at Colorado State University, U.S. suggests that avian influenza (H5N1) is transmitted through multiple, previously unknown sources and that some H5N1 positive cows do not show clinical signs of infection.

The Timor green pigeon, which is under pressure from hunting and habitat loss, is at serious risk of extinction and should be uplisted to Critically Endangered, according to a new study from researchers at Charles Darwin University and BirdLife International.

J. Craig Venter, the genomicist whose work redrew the architecture of modern biology, died on 29 April 2026 in San Diego at the age of 79, following complications from treatment of a recently diagnosed cancer. Brain Health, a new peer-reviewed journal launched today by Genomic Press, publishes in its inaugural issue a scientific tribute by Dr. Julio Licinio that foregrounds a part of Venter’s legacy that other obituaries have understandably treated as background: his earliest major methodological breakthrough emerged at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, where he pioneered the expressed sequence tag as a route to rapidly identifying brain-expressed genes. The tribute traces an arc from that neuroscience starting point through the first complete bacterial genome, the parallel pursuit of the human sequence, large-scale ocean metagenomics, and the construction of the first cell controlled by a chemically synthesized genome.

Even the giant wings of the albatross are not ‘optimally’ shaped for their extraordinary long-distance migrations, according to new University of Bristol research. 

The study, published in Nature Communications, reveals that many bird species possess wing shapes surprisingly ill-suited to their flight performance. In contrast, penguins and hummingbirds stand out as exceptions, having evolved wing shapes closely matched to their specialised style of movement.