Patients with sickle cell disease have mutant haemoglobin proteins that form deadly long, stiff fibres inside red blood cells. A research team led by University of Warwick researcher Dr Matthew Turner, propose a mathematical model in the 28 March online issue of PRL to explain the persistent stability of these deadly fibres. The theory suggests that an inherent “twistiness” in the strands that make up the fibres could be the key to their durability and possibly to new treatments.

Red blood

Patchy woods-common in cities and suburbia, and even in rural areas-may have more Lyme disease-carrying ticks, which could increase risk of the disease in these forest remnants, scientists have found. While forest fragments generally have fewer species than continuous habitat does, some species actually fare better in small patches, according to biologist Felicia Keesing of Bard College in Annandale, NY, and her colleagues. Lyme disease incidence is rising in the United States, and is in fact far mor

Greater use of clean electricity from the sun should be a step closer, thanks to new research carried out in the UK.

The research has shown how the cost of generating solar electricity can be reduced, laying the foundation for a major expansion in the use of this sustainable energy technology.

The project has been undertaken by a team of physicists, chemists, material scientists and engineers at Sheffield Hallam University, with funding from the Swindon-based Engineering and

Using a laser beam scalpel so fine it could inscribe words on the surface of a fly egg, researchers have snipped their way to a new understanding of a key process in a fruit fly’s embryonic development. The process, called dorsal closure, is the complex mechanism by which the embryonic skin of the fruit fly Drosophila knits itself together to protect its innards from the outside world.

Understanding this seemingly arcane process is important because dorsal closure uses molecular and cellular

In a recent study published in Ecology, John Lill and Robert Marquis (University of Missouri – St. Louis) investigated the role shelter-building caterpillars play in herbivorous insect communities living on white oaks. Previous studies have shown how caterpillars create and modify habitats through the construction of leaf shelters, increasing biodiversity around the leaves. In their study, Lill and Marquis wanted to see what effect shelter-building caterpillars had on the entire community living on o

Sometimes finding out what doesn’t matter in science is just as important as finding what does.

That’s the case for a study that looked at the function of the viral protein, MTase1. Researchers found that the rate of virus replication in tissue culture was not affected when MTase1 was removed.

The finding is important as researchers look for what proteins are essential and how they function in cells, potentially providing answers to everything from insect control to the co