Life Sciences and Chemistry

Primary author of several recent studies involving di-n-butyl phthalate (DBP) and linuron (L) discusses his findings and what they mean for understanding human development.

Over the last ten years, US researchers have observed a marked increase in some male reproductive disorders, including undescended testicles, increased instances of testicular cancer, and decreased sperm count. In the last 20 years the rates for testicular cancer have grown almost five-fold in Denmark, yet neighbo

A group of nuclear-envelope-associated proteins have been found in a plant for the very first time by a team of researchers at Ohio State University. Led by Professor Iris Meier, this new finding show that these proteins (Plant RanGAP and MAF) have in common a nuclear envelope-targeting domain which is unique to plants and distinctly different from sequences found in known animal nuclear envelope proteins.

This finding is significant because it implies that a funadamentally different nuclea

Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers are moving closer to understanding how the global pattern of the skeleton of mammals is formed during development. In an exceptionally demanding series of experiments, the researchers knocked out entire sets of two families of genes suspected in playing a central role in establishing the pattern of the skeleton in the mammalian embryo.

Their findings regarding the “paralogous” gene families known as Hox10 and Hox11 establish that the genes

Abnormally high calcium levels spurred on by a mutated gene may lead to the death of neurons associated with Huntington’s disease, an inherited genetic disorder, characterized by mental and physical deterioration, for which there is no known cure.

This discovery by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, published in the current issue of Neuron, sheds new light on the process that causes the selective death of neurons in the region of the brain called the striatu

In the fishbowl of life, when hordes of well-fed predators drive their prey to the brink of extinction, sometimes evolution takes the fast track to help the hunted survive — and then thrive to outnumber their predators.

This rapid evolution, predicted by Cornell University biologists in computer models and demonstrated with Pac-Man-like creatures and their algae food in laboratory habitats called chemostats, could play an important role in the ecological dynamics of many predator-

Using a tool kit of lasers, tiny beads and a Lego set, Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have made the first measurement of the torsional, or twisting, elasticity of a single molecule of DNA.

The measurements reveal that DNA is significantly stiffer than previously thought and, when wound, may in fact provide enough power to be used as a sort of molecular, rubberband motor to propel nanomachines. Although that type of application may be well in the future, the studies are si