If we are what we eat, some lake fish are made of maple leaves
...ientists have found an ingenious method of teasing apart the carbon cycle of lakes," says James Morris, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s division of environmental biology, which funded the research. "Their study reveals a surprising degree of dependence of lake food webs on sourc...'Smart bomb' delivery destroys tumors in mice
...biochemical reaction between two substances stored apart in tiny, adjoining compartments within each clove. The two are an enzyme, alliinase, and a normally inert chemical called alliin. When the clove is damaged, whether by soil parasites intending to eat the tender tissues, or by cooks making sauce, the ...Science's breakthrough of the year: Illumination of the dark, expanding universe
...ostly of mysterious "dark matter," being stretched apart by an unknown force called "dark energy." This set...searchers can see if the galaxies are being pulled apart by dark energy or pushed together by gravity. In October, the SDSS team reported its ana...EGFR: A molecular lab rat let loose in systems biology
...issues. "We can make cells come together and come apart by swapping domains." By defining the functional domains, Wiley listened in on a previously unheard conversation inside the cell. And he didn't care so much about why they were talking as what they were saying. "We just wanted to know what informa...Microscopes provide new view for tissue engineering
...and cellular activity can help scientists to tease apart the essentials of this interactive relationship. In turn, such knowledge can speed development of tissue-engineered products ranging from skin replacements to substitute livers to inside-the-body treatments of osteoporosis. NIST scientist Joy Dunkers...Nanotech instruments allow first direct observations of RNA 'proofreading'
...fter latching onto the double helix, RNAP pulls it apart and starts building new RNA molecules by copying one DNA base at a time. With thousands of A's, T's, G's and C's to transcribe, RNAP sometimes gets confused and copies the wrong base. Such errors occur roughly once every 1,000 bases, but RNAP's remar...Study explores safety of low-dose radiation
...olet light - undoubtedly is strong enough to break apart chemical bonds in the body, including DNA, says Dr. William S. Dynan, biochemist and chief of the Program in Gene Regulation at the Medical College of Georgia Institute of Molecular Medicine and Genetics. Dr. Dynan, principal investigator on the new ...Researchers create 'supersized' molecule of DNA
...ble than natural DNA. In the lab, natural DNA fell apart at 71 F (21.3 C), while xDNA remained intact at 132 F (55.6 C). ''Almost everything bigger stacks better than things that are smaller, and base pairs are no exception,'' Kool said. ''They'd rather be stacked on one another, and that keeps the helix t...UMHS researchers find clues to growing new jawbones in cancer patients after radiation therapy
...growing bone in which the fractured bone is pulled apart millimeters at a time. As the fracture begins to heal, surgeons tug the bone further apart, tricking the body into thinking it must still work to heal the fracture. The body then begins to grow new bone to fill in the gap. In two studies, UMHS resea......nlike humans, rats can tell two very similar odors apart with just one sniff. And because it's not the Nose that Knows, but rather the brain, such studies of how animals can rapidly and accurately discriminate odors are revealing vital new information about how the human brain processes information, guides...Alcohol's pharmacological properties, not smell or taste, reinforce its effects
...h an empty nipple, or alcohol with water delivered apart from a nipple. Experiment three examined blood alcohol concentrations five minutes and 60 minutes after one of four doses of alcohol administered through an abdominal injection. "Our key finding is that an injection of alcohol, with essentially no a...Envisat observes resurgent ozone hole
... reach a sufficiently high altitude they are split apart by contact with high-energy UV light, releasing more reactive chemicals chief among them chlorine. In the presence of high-altitude clouds in the cold air above the South Pole these reactive chemicals break ozone down to form oxygen molecules. "The...Salmonella uses molecular staples to change structure of infected cells
...ion, and through extensive image processing, tease apart the role that SipA plays in forming filaments. They found that SipA is shaped like a molecular staple, with a rounded middle and two extending arms that project from either side of the molecule. The middle core of the SipA molecule binds to actin and...Researchers solve the mystery of a key structure in immune system cells
...e in fact being degraded -- in other words, ripped apart and recycled by the body -- which only happens after they've finished the majority of their signaling. "This created a kind of a shock to the field," recalls Dr. Dustin, "because everyone had been banking on this central cluster as a site of very act...Harvard Medical School launches new department to study human biology at the level of whole systems
...nstitutional collaboration sets the HMS department apart from other efforts in the emerging field. Even within the HMS home Quadrangle, the new department will be physically adjacent to the Department of Neurobiology, which is also launching a parallel program in systems neuroscience. It is anticipated tha...New compound library to speed drug discovery
...ort of biological activity. What sets this library apart from similar collections is that Stockwell's group also devised an algorithm that annotates everything each compound can do, incorporating up to 12,000 different functions per molecule. Essentially, says Stockwell, "it's an annotation strategy that c......nt), suggesting that a distinct cellular mechanism apart from alterations in myocardial contractility is responsible. A new study by Jil Tardiff and colleagues at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York has revealed that a single missense mutation in cTnT causes a striking disruption to energy ...Progeria: Facing old age is hard facing it during childhood is unthinkable
...e, curious and full of life, but something set her apart from the typical toddler: Fleur had a fatal disease, and her life was destined to be short lived. Little Fleur was one in approximately 30 to 40 children worldwide currently diagnosed with a rare genetic disease called Progeria. Children with Proge...Findings in frog oocytes may help study of chromosome physiology
...m cells -- have found that two key proteins remain apart at a crucial time before condensation occurs. One of the proteins, they say, may be important in the early organization of chromosomes and later may recruit the other. In the August issue of the journal Chromosome Research, scientists at the Univers...Hopkins is first US institution to obtain powerful genotyping system
...cost to researchers, our flexibility should set us apart from what is available from companies," says Alan Scott, Ph.D., director of Johns Hopkins' Genetics Resources Core Facility and one of the forces behind getting the new genotyping system. "Quite a few research programs here require genotyping hundred...