Early on the morning of 30 June 1908, the vast forest of western Siberia was illuminated by a strange apparition: an alien object streaking across the cloudless sky. White hot from its headlong plunge into the Earth’s atmosphere, the intruder exploded about 8 km above the ground, flattening trees over an area of 2000 square kilometres.

Despite the huge detonation, equivalent to a 10 megaton nuclear warhead (about 500 times the energy of the Hiroshima atomic bomb), there were few if any casu

Scientists from the John Innes Centre (JIC), Norwich (1) have today reported that highly toxic compounds, called free radicals, are essential to plant growth. The researchers had found that the controlled production of free radicals is an essential first step in switching on the expansion of cells that underlies the growth of plant shoots, roots, leaves and buds. A phenomenon that is especially evident in the spring. The research is reported in the international scientific journal Nature.

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The work of a Binghamton chemistry professor is altering conventional wisdom about the interactions of the anticancer drug Taxol ® and could lead to the development of even more effective, next-generation pharmaceuticals.

With $406,835 funding from the National Institute of Health, Susan Bane and her Binghamton research team are working in collaboration with David Kingston of Virginia Polytechnic Institute to learn more about the protein “tubulin.”

“Tubulin is a target for a number

Dramatic images reveal unique star explosion

In the early months of 2002, astronomers scanning the sky saw something highly unusual – and they still don’t know exactly what it is. A star suddenly flashed to 600,000 times its previous brightness. For a brief time, it was the brightest star in the galaxy.

As the light from the outburst spread into space, it reflected from surrounding rings of dust to reveal a spectacular, multicolored bull’s eye that is now 3 light

Finding how E1 enzyme juggles three jobs should lead to critical insights into the control of cellular functions at the heart of health and disease

Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have discovered how a single enzyme called E1 performs a rapid-fire, three-part chemical makeover of a protein that helps control some of the most fundamental biochemical processes of the human cell. The enzyme uses two different parts of its own structure to juggle four different mo

The world’s biggest fungus, discovered in Oregon’s Blue Mountains in 2001, is challenging traditional notions of what constitutes an individual. The underground fungus–estimated to be between 2000 and 8500 years old–is also deepening our understanding of the ecosystem, with possible implications for the management of Canadian forests, according to a paper by the discoverers (B.A. Ferguson, T.A. Dreisbach, C.G. Parks, G.M. Filip, and C.L. Schmitt) published March 17 on the Web site of the