Macromolecules on surface control mobility in phospholipid bilayers
...ethod is somewhat like shining a floodlight at one spot on a dance floor, with couples waltzing in and out...y. "We shine a near-infrared laser at a very small spot on the bilayer, and watch the motion of fluorescing molecules waltzing in and out of the illuminated...Vietnam war technology could aid elephant conservation
...elephant numbers in open savanna cannot be used to spot elephants in dense forest. As a result, the new technique could provide crucial data for reserve planning and management. "Conservation management would be improved by more accurate methods for monitoring and estimating the size of elephant populatio......ystem Partnership Fund, added, "Russia is a bright spot in the conservation of tigers in Asia, and is proof of our belief that a few dedicated individuals, with sufficient motivation and adequate support, can make a difference in the world." Coordinators of the survey effort gathered in Vladivostok today...Fragment of yellow fever virus may hold key to safer vaccine
... bit of virus that people's immune systems need to spot and quash this often-fatal re-emerging disease. The findings may help scientists improve the existing vaccine, which has rare but severe side effects, said Jan ter Meulen, an HHMI international research scholar and associate professor of virology at ...'Jumping genes' contribute to the uniqueness of individual brains
...em. Almost all of them are marooned at a permanent spot by mutations rendering them dysfunctional, but in humans a hundred or so are free to move via a "copy and paste" mechanism. Long dismissed as useless gibberish or "junk" DNA, the transposable L1 elements were thought to be intracellular parasites or ...Holographic movies show promise for medical, military applications
...rned Dr. Garner and his "holographic television" a spot on Popular Science magazine's list of the top five "great ideas for the future," featured in the June 2005 issue. "I thought it was great that we made this list," Dr. Garner said. "It's good company to be in." Also on the Popular Science list are a ...For first time, brain cells generated in a dish
...ls mature along the way, finishing as neurons in a spot called the olfactory bulb. In the laboratory cultu...the needed cell type and placing it in the correct spot would have major impact," said Dr. Eric Holland, a neurosurgeon at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer C...Leading scientists rank endangered dolphins, porpoises most in need of immediate action
...e nets are difficult for dolphins and porpoises to spot visually or detect with their sonar, so they may become tangled in the netting or in the ropes attached to the nets. "Almost 1,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises die every day in nets and fishing gear. Some species are being pushed to the brink of...New law for resolution allows unprecedented sharpness in fluorescence microscopy
...the fact that light cannot be focused to a smaller spot due to diffraction. It seemed impossible to image ...a STED microscope, the relevant focal fluorescence spot can, in principle, be reduced in size to the size of a molecule (2-5 nm). This is due to the fact th...Scientists journey to southern Africa to unravel the secret world of elephant communication
...Peering through binoculars, she and Eckert finally spot four male elephants on the horizon. The bulls head straight for the waterhole and begin splashing, spraying and performing a variety of other aquatic antics. Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, the four males step away from the water and freeze in ...Cure for common cold will need to wiggle to work, scientists say
...ses. Their flexibility allows them to reach a weak spot in the viral shell." Post carried out the study wi...ising is that they are very good at getting to the spot where they can tangle up the protein effectively, which turns out to be a tricky business." That spo...Brain may be less plastic than hoped
...cortical area corresponding to each monkey's blind spot fell silent, generating no activity. The team mea... region of their cortex corresponding to the blind spot would have shrunk." Instead, though, the silent region remained the same size each time. The neurons...Tiny toads fitted with backpacks
...ar, and confirming earlier research, was unable to spot a single Canadian toad. In fact, she's never seen one. The small, bumpy-skinned species, which dines on grasshoppers and other invertebrates, plays a valuable role in the food web and crop pest control. It has become locally extinct. "We've changed t...Atmosphere may cleanse itself better than previously thought
...orb - a portion that has been something of a blind spot for scientists, who often detect chemical reactions by perceiving the telltale light frequencies that certain reactions are known to emit or absorb. Many sources of OH radicals strongly absorb UV light, making them easily detectable. However, the wea...A decade after launch, ERS-2's mission continues
...cally combining different radar images of the same spot to create digital elevation models (DEMs) and also revealing otherwise undetectable changes occurring between image acquisitions. In effect InSAR works like a sophisticated version of 'spot the difference', identifying millimetre-scale ground moveme...Researchers unmask malaria parasite's cloaking mechanism
...w and again, one of the genes moves into the right spot and gets activated." Because some var genes are located near each other, Cowman said, sometimes more than one var gene is moved into a compartment at the same time. Since this does not result in the simultaneous expression of multiple var genes, it s...Hydrogen and methane provide raw energy for life at 'Lost City'
...studied since the 1970s. Scientists who named the spot Lost City knew they were looking at something never seen before when the field was serendipitously discovered in December 2000 during a National Science Foundation expedition to the mid-Atlantic. This week in Science, researchers publish for the fir...New science sheds light on rebuilding fisheries
...he evolutionary effect of fishing has been a blind spot for managers overlooked, downplayed, ignored because of the complexity, or just not on the radar screen. "The truly worrisome aspect is that repairing evolutionary damage is vastly more difficult than causing it," says Ulf Dieckmann. "The debt we ...From Mars to Maryland: 2005 AAAS Annual Meeting spotlights
...e scientists, all of whom will be assembled in one spot at the AAAS Meeting -- just a few days after the latest fly-by of Saturn's moon, Titan. Reports on efforts to define "male" versus "female," and to better understand the one in 4,000 to one in 5,000 babies who are classified as "intersex" at birth b...Falling ants glide back to trunk to avoid dangers of forest floor
...and on the tree's trunk and climb back to the very spot from which they'd fallen. "I brushed them off the branch with my hand, and I noticed that maybe 20 or 30 of them fell in unison and then made this nice little cascade back to the tree trunk," said Yanoviak via phone from Iquitos. "That's when I reali...