Life Sciences and Chemistry

A gene thought to keep a single X chromosome turned on in mice plays no such role in humans, Johns Hopkins researchers report in the August issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics.

The finding is likely to relegate the disproven gene to relative obscurity, at least in humans, says Barbara Migeon, M.D., of the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine, whose laboratory found the human version of the gene in 2001. It also moves the search for the gene from the X chromosome to the

Fruit rinds provide new clues about crop domestication

Distinctly sculptured opaline phytoliths in soil and plant remains tell archaeologists which plants were present thousands of years ago. However, the production and purpose of these tiny glassy structures common in plant tissues is poorly understood. Dolores Piperno at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama and colleagues predict that a single genetic locus controls both lignin and phytolith production in sq

A team of researchers from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has discovered a way to use adult bone marrow stem cells to form new blood vessels in the eye or to deliver chemicals that will prevent the abnormal formation of new vessels.

This technique, which involves injecting the stem cells into the eye, could potentially be used to stimulate vessel growth and address inherited degenerations of the retina in the first instance, and in the second, to treat ocular diseases resulting from

Optical properties could prove useful in biomedical, nanoelectronic applications

Add fluorescence to the growing list of unique physical properties associated with carbon nanotubes — the ultrasmall, ultrastrong wunderkind of the fullerene family of carbon molecules.

In research detailed in the current issue of Science magazine, a team of Rice University chemists led by fullerene discoverer and Nobel laureate Richard Smalley describes the first observations of fluorescence

Roman A. Amosov and a team of Russian scientists from the Central Institute for Geological Exploration of Non-ferrous and Noble Metals, Institute of Paleontology, Russian Academy of Sciences, and from the Institute of Microbiology, Russian Academy of Sciences, led by, have managed to simulate in the laboratory the process of precipitation of gold which in the natural geothermal wells is promoted by blue-green algae (cyanobacteriae).

For the purposes of the experiment Vladimir Orleans

The next step in understanding what the human genome is telling us, especially

Despite some cosmetic differences, we all have the same genetic makeup that evolved from primitive man. Unfortunately, the genes that were in place before the advent of the earliest civilizations were not designed to carry individuals through today’s typical age span, now approximately eight decades of wear and tear. Additionally, the multiple genetic mutations that could survive in ancient times more than