Life Sciences and Chemistry

Two Johns Hopkins scientists have figured out a simple way to make millions upon millions of drug-like peptides quickly and efficiently, overcoming a major hurdle to creating and screening huge “libraries” of these super-short proteins for use in drug development.

“Our work dramatically increases the complexity of peptide libraries that can be created and the speed with which they can be made and processed,” says Chuck Merryman, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow who developed the new technique. “

Scientists glean new insight from prematurely old mice

The relationship between genome integrity and aging is the subject of a new report in the upcoming issue of Genes & Development. Drs Lin-Quan Sun and Robert Arceci at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have developed a novel mouse model to study premature aging, and the genetic events that contribute to normal development and longevity.

“The inability of an organism to maintain the integrity of its genome has bee

Using magnets and video microscopy to measure the length of individual DNA molecules under experimental conditions, researchers have demonstrated that Condensin, a complex of proteins widely conserved in evolution, physically compacts DNA in a manner dependent on energy from ATP. The finding is significant because the Condensin complex, which is essential for life, has been known to play a key role in the dramatic condensation of genomic DNA that precedes mitosis and cell division. The new work puts

Grasses typify the Great Plains, so it’s not surprising that more than 108 species of grasshoppers are at home on the range in the central United States.

However, a grasshopper that doesn’t love grass lives in Kansas too, a recent discovery at Kansas State University’s Konza Prairie Biological Station shows. This newfound hopper prefers trees.

The first specimen was actually collected in September 2001 by a student from Fort Riley Middle School, according to Valerie

HIV-AIDS did not come from oral polio vaccine contaminated with chimpanzee virus, reports a research team led by a University of Arizona evolutionary biologist.

Belief that polio vaccine can spread AIDS has hampered the World Health Organization’s efforts to stamp out polio. In Nigeria, several states recently banned use of the vaccine. Nigeria now has the highest number of polio cases in the world.

Although scientists agree that HIV comes from a chimpanzee simian immunodeficie

Saddle-shaped structure provides the spring to generate powerful punch

Forget boxers Oscar de la Hoya and Shane Mosley. The fastest punches are delivered by a lowly crustacean – the stomatopod, or mantis shrimp.

With the help of a BBC camera crew and the loan of a high-speed video camera, University of California, Berkeley, scientists have recorded the swiftest kick, and perhaps most brutal attack, of any predator. The shrimp flail their club-shaped front leg at peak speeds