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The team, led by senior authors Qi Zhou and Xiao-Yang Zhao, both from the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, took embryonic stem cells from mice and treated them to a series of carefully worked out steps that included first exposing the stem cells to testicular cells in newly born male mice. The scientists then recreated the chemical environment that sperm cells need to grow, including early development factors and sex hormones including testosterone, follicle stimulating hormone and a growth factor from the pituitary gland.

A kind of salmon that's been genetically modified so that it grows faster may be on the way to a supermarket near you. The Food and Drug Administration approved the fish on Thursday - a decision that environmental and food-safety groups are vowing to fight. This new kind of fast-growing salmon was actually created 25 years ago by Massachusetts-based AquaBounty Technologies. A new gene was inserted into fertilized salmon eggs - it boosted production of a fish growth hormone. The result: a fish that grows twice as fast as its conventional, farm-raised counterpart.

What an incredible transformation. A protein used to help bones mend can also force pancreatic cells into producing insulin. The discovery could help people with type 1 diabetes produce their own insulin without having to take daily injections. In type 1 diabetes, beta cells in the pancreas that make insulin - the hormone that keeps our blood glucose levels at a safe concentration - are destroyed by the immune system. As a result, people with the disease have to inject themselves daily with insulin. Now, researchers have discovered that non-beta cells in the pancreas can be transformed into insulin-producing cells, merely by exposing them to a growth factor called BMP-7.

For Collinge, this led to a worrying conclusion: that the plaques might have been transmitted, alongside the prions, in the injections of growth hormone-the first evidence that Alzheimer's could be transmitted from one person to another. If true, that could have far-reaching implications: the possibility that 'seeds' of the amyloid-β protein involved in Alzheimer's could be transferred during other procedures in which fluid or tissues from one person are introduced into another, such as blood transfusions, organ transplants and other common medical procedures.