OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND...

A bird called the blackcap has been showing up in Britain lately, in droves. Seems these birds of the forest, which used to winter in the western Mediterranean, have changed their migratory routes. German researchers studied some blackcaps and their offspring, and report in Nature that the change is genetic; responding to some environmental signal, the birds' hard-wired migratory instructions have evolved in an astonishingly short 30 years.

FOREVER YOUNG

Fruit flies are the mules, if you will, of genetic research; they breed fast, and their simple chromosomes are ideal for the study of heredity. Now a group of U.S. biologists has found a way to freeze living fly embryos. Not only does that guarantee a stable fly supply, but it is a landmark achievement in another sense: fruit flies are the most complex organisms ever to be lab frozen and revived. The technique could lead, albeit far down the road, to the freezing of mammals--even humans, maybe.