Of the five basic senses, the sense of smell is the least understood. Now, scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have sniffed out potential clues to how olfactory receptors in the nose detect odors. Those clues may also explain why dietary zinc deficiencies lead to a loss of smell.

Olfactory receptors are proteins that bridge through the cell membrane. Professor Kenneth S. Suslick and co-workers have found that the structure of the protein changes dramatically when a

It is natural to suppose that conducting the same tests, with the same strain of mice and the same protocols on identical equipment but in different labs will ensure similar results. A University of Alberta researcher and his team have found that assumption not to be true–fuelling the nature vs. nurture debate and shedding some light on the importance of environmental factors in experiments.

Dr. Douglas Wahlsten, from the Department of Psychology, is part of a research team that use mice w

A recently discovered enzyme called endothelial lipase regulates the structure, metabolism and blood concentration of high density lipoprotein (HDL), the so-called “good cholesterol,” said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in a report in the online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In a series of studies in mice, Dr. Lawrence Chan, chief of the section of endocrinology and metabolism at Baylor, his co-workers and colleagues from the section of cardiol

University of Colorado at Boulder researchers have conducted the most sensitive search to date for gravitational-strength forces between masses separated by only twice the diameter of a human hair, but they have observed no new forces.

The results rule out a substantial portion of parameter space for new forces with a range between one-tenth and one-hundredth of a millimeter, where theoretical physicists using string theory have proposed that “moduli forces” might be detected, according to

Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have developed a better-performing, less costly method of disinfecting water used in food processing.

Like current technologies, the new Advanced Disinfection Technology System relies on ultraviolet (UV) radiation to eliminate molds, viruses and bacteria. But the new system handles water more efficiently and thus improves the overall effectiveness of the disinfection process, researchers reported.

“We’re creating a mixing pattern to e

Densely packed granular particles that inch past each other under tension interact in ways more complex and surprising than previously believed, two Duke University physicists have discovered.

Their observations, described in the Thursday, February 27, 2003, issue of the research journal Nature, could provide new insight into such geophysical processes as the behavior of a slowly moving glacier or an active earthquake fault, said Robert Behringer, a Duke physics professor who is one of the