Major Plant Genome Research Project Underway
...s a small plant in the mustard family, and has the smallest genome and the highest gene density so far identified in a flowering plant. What scientists learn from the study of Arabidopsis genes will be immediately applicable to economically important plant species, according to Mary Clutter, NSF assistant d...Scientists Discover Smallest Frog
...s funded by the National Science Foundation is the smallest in the Northern Hemisphere, and is tied for the world record with the smallest frog in the Southern Hemisphere, says a biologist from Pennsylvania State University in a paper publ...New Ultrafine Metal Powder Production Process
... the individual particles are smaller than the smallest bacteria or about the size of a small virus. Singh makes the silver powder by putting silver nitrate, an inexpensive, colorless liquid used in pharmaceuticals, photography, and dyes, in the blender with a reducing agent at room tempe...'Rolling Circles' Provide New Way to Amplify and Detect DNA
...l's rolling circles are 100 times smaller than the smallest viruses -- in fact, they can be even smaller than theDNA-copying enzymes themselves. In addition, Kool has shown that both DNA and RNA can be synthesized using rolling circles. The University has filed for additional patents on other applicatio......ed heart where large natural bypasses grow from smallest preexisting connections which are however large enough for the microscopic beads to pass through. The current method therefore is mainly suitable for situation in which many small vessels are diseased but not for bypassing a large sten...PEBBLEs Help U-M Scientists Open A Window On Cell Chemistry
...robes Encapsulated By BioListic Embedding) are the smallest biosensors ever developed, according to Raoul Kopelman , the U-M's Kasimir Fajans Professor of Chemistry , Physics and Applied Physics . They were designed to work inside mammalian cells where they can detect subtle changes in concentrations of...Extra Choline During Pregnancy Enhances Memory In Offspring
...ed animals responded very quickly and easily tothe smallest electrical stimulus, indicating their hippocampus was primed tolearn. "What this suggests is an actual change in brain circuitry brought aboutby added choline during a critical window of prenatal development," Swartzweldersaid. "The brains of...Increasing Frequency Of El Nino Takes Toll On Northern Hemisphere's Only Penguins
...to extinction." The flightless birds are among the smallest penguins, typically standing 20 to24 inches high and weighing 4 to 5 pounds. They live primarily on two islands inthe Galapagos Archipelago off the coast of Ecuador. Since they can range to thenorthernmost reaches of the chain, above the equator, the...Genetic Study Reveals Sumatran Tigers Are A Distinct Species From All Mainland Tigers
...5 in captive breeding programs. Sumatrans are the smallest of the livingtigers, with males ranging from seven to eight feet in length and weighingbetween 220 and 310 pounds. In contrast, male Siberians, the largest livingtigers, range from nine to eleven feet in length and weigh between 420 and 675pounds. ...Scientists Excited About Miniature Cooking Pots
... Young is pretty excited about what may benature's smallest cooking vessel--the round shell of a virusthat's been emptied of the stuff that causes disease. Young studies viruses at Montana State University-Bozeman. Heand Temple University chemist Trevor Douglas have discovered thatthe protein case that encap...Duke Studies Show That Environmental Effects Of Dams Extend To Insect Life
...ighlyspecialized fruit-eating butterflies from the smallest surviving pieces of theformer forest, while at the...of 5.6 leaf cutter ant colonies per hectare on the smallest islands,compared to 2.3 on medium sized islands and only 0.72 on the largest. The reason see...Birds Of A Feather: The Physics Of Flocks
... up perfectly with each other, because itcosts the smallest amount of energy for them to be aligned. But a little heatcan add enough energy to the material to misalign the magnets, therebyintroducing a sort of "error" in the material. Vicsek quickly realized a major problem with the ferromagnet analogy. Bec...Low Birth-Weight Risk Begins Early
...turely and three times morelikely to fall into the smallest 5 percent of babies. "A significant proportion of low birth-weight and extremely premature birthseems to be determined at a very early stage," Smith comments. "Obstetricianscan't generally predict extremely premature delivery and when a baby is born...X-Ray Concentrator Will Expand Window On High-Energy Universe
...ening of one capillary. It also means that eventhe smallest speck of contamination is like having a pebble stuck inside astraw. If the glass tubes are bent ever so gently, the X-rays graze the surface at justless than the critical angle. Imagine a race car bouncing back and forth betweenthe guard rails as it ......anic systems." His model is based on one of life's smallest systems. Purple bacteria live inthe mud below surface plants. They are scavengers, feeding on bits, or photons,of sunlight that are not claimed by the plants. In fact, Schulten said, they"feed" on only two types of photons -- one with a wavelength...Protestors Are Up In Arms Over Experiments That Give Chimps AIDS
...ethal HIV strains, with the aim of working out the smallest dose needed toestablish an infection via the rectum. Novembre and virologist Patricia Fultz ofthe University of Alabama at Birmingham have already exposed chimps with goodimmune responses to less virulent strains of HIV to one of the new aggressivest...Vesicle Chemistry: A New Way To Get Life-Like Reactions
...nterior of a living cell. "We now have the world's smallest test tubes," says Richard N. Zare, theMarguerite Blake Wilbur Professor of Chemistry at Stanford, who headed theresearch effort reported in the March 19 issue of the journal Science.The ability to study chemical reactions in cell-like containers has ...For DNA, it's all about fitting in
...lth and the U.S. Army, they reduced one baseto the smallest chemical entity"a proton"and provided it with a partner that wasnearly double the size of a normal base. Together the two bases filled about thesame space as a conventional pair, fitting within the general structure of DNA,though neither looks anythi...World's smallest deer species discovered by WCS
...DNA testing as a new species,making it the world's smallest deer, according to a recent study led by theBronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). The "leaf deer" or "leaf muntjac," which lives in remote mountain regionsof Southeast Asia, was first seen by WCS biologist Alan Rabinowitz in 19...Smog impacts: Hurtling through airways, tiny particles may do more damage than previously assumed
...ersion and hydroscopicexpansion) suggest that "the smallest particles can sometimes penetrate almosttwo times farther into airways than we had suspected," Wexler says. That's because air in the center of a lung tube flows faster than thesurrounding stream, he explains. And, particle-laden air mixes with clean...