Life Sciences and Chemistry

Yale scientists have discovered a new way of illuminating MCH neurons, which may play an important role in regulating appetite and body weight, by using a virus that has been genetically engineered so that it cannot replicate.

MCH neurons are located in the hypothalamus, a homeostatic regulatory center of the brain. Because these nerve cells look like any other brain cell, it has been difficult to study their cellular behavior previously.

The researchers took the “safe” virus, know

UCLA chemists have devised an elegant solution to an intricate problem at the nanoscale that stumped scientists for many years: They have made a mechanically interlocked compound whose molecules have the topology of the beloved interlocked Borromean rings. In the May 28 issue of the journal Science, the team reports nanoscience that could be described as art.

The UCLA group is the first to achieve this goal in total chemical synthesis, which research groups worldwide have been pursuing.

Researchers from Havard University have discovered the presence of a previously unidentified microbial community inside the porous stone of the Maya ruins in Mexico that may be capable of causing rapid deterioration of these sites. They present their findings at the 104th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.

“The presence of a previously undescribed endolithic microbial community that is different than the surface community has important implications for the conservation

Experiments by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers have revealed it might be possible for randomness in gene expression to lead to differences in cells — or people, for that matter — that are genetically identical.

The researchers, HHMI investigator Erin K. O’Shea and colleague Jonathan M. Raser, both at the University of California, San Francisco, published their findings May 27, 2004, in Science Express, the online edition of the journal Science.

According to O

Discovery may lead to insights into cancer, birth defects, fertility and neurological disorders

A cellular structure discovered 125 years ago and dismissed by many biologists as “cellular garbage” has been found to play a key role in the process of cytokinesis, or cell division, one of the most ancient and important of all biological phenomena.
The discovery of the function of the dozens of proteins harbored within this structure – which are necessary for normal cell division – by

Raindrops and proteins seem to have a lot in common. This has been shown in a new study by scientists at Umeå University in Sweden. The principle behind the formation of raindrops is very similar to how proteins fold. This knowledge is vital to our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases like ALS.

These findings have been published in the latest issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and have caught the attention of the international research community. The