Life Sciences and Chemistry

Scientists from IVPP, Field Museum and University of Chicago describe a new Chinese reptile from the Triassic and propose a unique feeding method

The well-preserved fossil of a newly discovered reptile species may explain the function of the extremely long neck for which some protorosaurs are known – a feature that has puzzled scientists for decades. The Protorosauria is an order of diverse predatory reptiles that lived as far back as 280 million years ago. Scientists have never been

Neurobiologists have pinpointed the molecular storehouse that supplies the neurotransmitter receptor proteins used for learning-related changes in the brain. They also found hints that the same storage compartments, called recycling endosomes, might be more general transporters for ’memory molecules’ used to remodel the neuron to strengthen its connections with its neighbors.

They said their finding constitutes an important step toward understanding the machinery by whic

Biologists have discovered that the air pollutant nitric oxide acts as a plant hormone to delay flowering in plants. The scientists discovered that while plants produce their own internal nitric oxide to regulate flowering, they are also influenced by external concentrations of the chemical.

The scientists said that although their findings are basic in nature, they suggest that the massive amounts of nitric oxide emitted as air pollutants from burning fossil fuels could affect the c

Mesothelioma is an aggressive cancer of the chest cavity that kills about 2000 people a year in the United States. Seventy to eighty percent of patients with this rare cancer have had exposure to asbestos. It has also been proposed that simian virus 40 (SV40), a contaminant in some polio vaccines administered in the 1950’s and 1960’s, might be a cause. However, studies reporting the detection of SV40 DNA in human tumors (including mesotheliomas, and also some lymphomas, brain cancers, an

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have identified a critical gene for plants that start their lives as seeds buried in soil. They say the burial of seeds was an adaptation that likely helped plants spread from humid, wet climates to drier, hostile environments.

In a study published in the Sept. 24 issue of the journal Science, the researchers describe how a gene called phytochrome-interacting factor 1, or PIF1, affects the production of protochlorophyll, a precu

Few have heard of the degenerative, deadly disease called Ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T) but a University of Alberta researcher is hoping to provide clues to this mysterious disorder.

Dr. Shelagh Campbell, from the U of A’s Department of Biological Sciences, is a basic researcher who studies how normal cell cycles are regulated, by analyzing genes that are responsible for repairing DNA damage that offer insights into human diseases like cancer and A-T. A-T is a progressive, degenera