Life Sciences and Chemistry

Significant abnormalities observed in cloned mice help reinforce the need to continue to avoid the reproductive cloning of humans, a scientist said on Wednesday 30 June 2004 at the 20th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. Dr. Takumi Takeuchi, from Cornell University, New York, USA told a media briefing that he and Dr. Gianpiero Palermo’s team had compared imprinting abnormalities (the process where specific genes inherited from both parents are silent)

Research aimed at teasing apart the workings of RNA enzymes eventually may lead to ways of monitoring fat metabolism and might even assist in the search for signs of life on Mars, according to University of Michigan researcher Nils Walter. His latest work was published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences June 24.

Walter and associates at U-M and colleague Xiaowei Zhuang and associates at Harvard University, use techniques that allow them to study single molecules

The discovery of what is believed to be the oldest evidence yet found of a human hereditary genetic disorder has been announced by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The researchers are Dr. Uri Zilberman and Patricia Smith, the Joel Wilbush Professor of Medical Anthropology, both of the Faculty of Dental Medicine of the Hebrew University and Dr. Silvana Condemi a senior researcher at the French Research Institute in Jerusalem. They are among the authors of an article in the

The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) celebrated its 40th anniversary this weekend. Leading scientists from all over Europe, amongst them 5 Nobel Laureates and Senior Vice President of Discovery Research at GlaxoSmithKline, flew in to take part in the celebrations; all of them honoured EMBO members. Many more sent messages of congratulations.

Set high on the hill above Heidelberg, its home since 1973, EMBO has come a long way since its foundation in 1964. EMBO, the leading lif

A single genetic test that is capable of detecting all mutations involved in the development of cystic fibrosis could be just a few years away, the 20th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology heard today (Monday 28 June).

Researchers at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, have discovered that recently developed microarray (or “gene chip”) technology* can be used successfully to detect one of the commonest cystic fibrosis (CF) g

Nature magazine has published an article by Xabier Irigoien, a researcher at AZTI, the Basque Fisheries and Marine Technological Research Centre. The article provides data on the diversity of marine life at the bottom of the sea – particularly amongst algae.

Species diversity

Most research carried out on the diversity of species has been with land animals. According to these investigations, diversity is greater in life-forms with medium productivity – defined as th