Life Sciences and Chemistry

Plus surprising differences in ’Normal’ DNA

Researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have developed one of the most sensitive, comprehensive, and robust methods that now exists for profiling the genetic basis of cancer and other diseases. The method detects chromosomal deletions and amplifications (i.e. missing or excess copies of DNA segments), and is useful for a wide variety of biomedical and other applications.

The study, led by Rob Lucito and Michael Wigler, is pub

The functional development of hair cells in the inner ear that mediate hearing and balance takes place over a period of just one day in mouse embryos, according to a study by a research team at the University of Virginia Health System.

The U.Va. scientists found that three essential elements for development in the mouse inner ear appear between day 16 and day 17 of gestation, roughly equivalent to the late second trimester or early third trimester in the human fetus. The finding is importan

New nerve cells put fall foraging on fast track

The “senior moments” that herald old age, and the ability to forget where we put something we held in our hands just moments ago, give us humans much cause to envy a species like the black-capped chickadee.
Especially when fall is right around the corner.

Every autumn, the chickadee roams a territory covering tens of square miles, gathering seeds and storing them in hundreds of hiding places in trees and on the ground. Ove

The 35,000 or so genes within a human cell are something like players on a sports team: If their activity isn’t controlled and coordinated, the result can be disastrous.

So just as coaches tell individual players when to scramble onto the field and when to stay on the bench, molecules called transcription factors prompt particular genes to be active or stay quiet. Transcription factors occur naturally in cells, but researchers have been working to develop artificial transcriptio

Rice, UIUC researchers find way to separate metallic, non-metallic nanotubes

Researchers at Rice University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have discovered the first method to chemically select and separate carbon nanotubes based on their electronic structure. The new process, described in the Sept. 12 issue of Science magazine, represents a fundamental shift in the way scientists think about the chemistry of carbon nanotubes.

“Other than low-cost mass prod

Scientists at the U.S Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory are exploring the use of bacteria to increase the recovery of methane, a clean natural gas, from coal beds, and to decontaminate water produced during the methane-recovery process.

Methane gas, which burns without releasing sulfur contaminants, is becoming increasingly important as a natural gas fuel in the U.S. But the process of recovering methane, which is often trapped within porous, unrecovered or waste co