Cancer patients could be benefiting more than they realise from diagnostic scans. Research published today in Breast Cancer Research suggests that a radioactive molecule widely used to evaluate advanced tumours can kill cancer cells.

Dr Ekaterina Dadachova and her team from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, USA, examined how radioactive glucose affects breast tumours in mice. They found that, injected at certain doses, the radiation from the glucose killed cance

While croplands may provide more food than forests, they don’t offer much relief from hot tropical climes, a new study finds.

A study of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, which used NASA satellites and computer models, reports that cutting down tropical forests and converting grasslands to crops may inadvertently warm those local areas. According to the research, forest canopies create wind turbulence that cools the air, and native grasslands are better adapted to the tropics than crops, in ways

Making a landmark event in the history of the experimental investigation of plutonium, scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for the first time have fully mapped the phonons in gallium-stabilized delta plutonium.

The experiment promises to reveal much about the physics and material properties of plutonium and its alloys.

The research, conducted in collaboration with researchers at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France, and the Univers

A group of scientists led by Dr. Elaine Fuchs at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the Rockefeller University have uncovered an unexpected new role for the well-known transcription factor, GATA-3, in hair follicle development. GATA-3 was previously identified for its role in coaxing hematopoietic stem cells towards a T-cell fate. Now, Dr. Fuchs and colleagues reveal that GATA-3 is also involved in epidermal stem cell specification. This finding lends valuable insight into hair follicle generatio

Scientists at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences have identified a gene called RFX4 that is responsible for the birth defect hydrocephalus in mice. Loss of a single copy of this gene in mice leads to a failure of drainage of cerebrospinal fluid from the brain cavity, which causes the skull to swell.

About one child in 2,000 worldwide is afflicted by hydrocephalus. Identification of the mouse gene provides a means for researchers to study the possible genetic origins of

The process by which a cell reads the genetic code in its DNA in order to manufacture a protein is complex, involving dozens of enzymes and other biological molecules working together.

Now, research at Cornell University, using the fruit fly as a model system, has confirmed a theory about one step in the process by showing that a protein complex known as FACT is positioned in living cells at sites where chromosomal DNA is unpacked so that its code can be read. It is part of what the resear