The Zeolite Crystal Growth (ZCG) experiment got off to a successful start this week aboard the International Space Station.

Hard as a rock, yet able to absorb liquids and gases like a sponge, zeolites form the backbone of the chemical processes industry. Virtually all the world’s gasoline is produced or upgraded using zeolites. Improving zeolites could make gasoline production more efficient or lead to ways of storing clean-burning hydrogen for fuel. Zeolites can also be applied to

What’s seven feet long, 250 million years old, and currently lurking in the depths of Oregon’s Rogue River? It’s the green sturgeon, the craggy, shark-like fish that has quietly eked out a living since the time of the dinosaurs. But according to a new study published by researchers from the Bronx-Zoo based Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups, this living fossil is extremely vulnerable to both overfishing and habitat alteration such as water diversion for irrigation and pollu

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered a possible new mechanism for regulating large groups of genes. While conducting yeast research on a potential new anticancer drug, the team identified a mechanism that enables the genome to silence large numbers of genes simultaneously, rather than each gene individually.

The finding emerged during research studying the molecular action of the drug rapamycin. Rapamycin currently is used to suppress the immu

Last April Swedish scientists discovered high levels of a potentially cancer-causing chemical called acrylamide in wide range of starch-containing foods that are fried or baked, particularly french fries, potato chips and crackers. The announcement received worldwide publicity. But at the time, no one knew where the acrylamide came from, how it was formed, or, indeed, if there is a link between acrylamide in food and cancer. The findings were quickly confirmed by the British Food Standards Agency. Ea

Using models that simulate the interaction between global climate and land ecosystems, atmospheric scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have shown that compensating for the carbon dioxide “greenhouse effect” by decreasing the amount of sunlight reaching the planet (geoengineering) could create a more vigorous ecosystem while helping to curb global warming.

The study suggests that planetary-scale engineering projects to lessen the amount of solar radiation reaching the

A broad group of discoveries about the biological powers of “small-RNA” molecules, some of which were made by researchers at Oregon State University, will be hailed on Friday as the scientific “Breakthrough of the Year” by the journal Science. Science is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society, and each year the prestigious journal identifies what it believes were the top 10 research advances of the year.

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