Phospholipid bilayers that mimic cell membranes in living organisms are of interest as substrates for biosensors and for the controlled release of pharmaceuticals. To better understand how these materials behave with embedded proteins, a necessary first step is to understand how the bilayers respond by themselves.

As will be reported in the Dec. 9 issue of Physical Review Letters (published online Nov. 21), scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have studied the phase t

The discharge of groundwater to coastal waters represents an important source of dissolved nutrients and contaminants that may affect chemical and biological processes in coastal ecosystems. In a journal article published in a recent issue of Limnology and Oceanography, URI Graduate School of Oceanography chemical oceanographers Roger P. Kelly and S. Bradley Moran describe how they used radium isotopes as tracers to determine seasonal changes in groundwater input to the Pettasquamscutt estuary from

Most of us don’t pay much attention to earthworms but maybe we should. New research suggests that non-native earthworms are radically changing the forest floor in the northern U.S., threatening the goblin fern and other rare plants in the process.
This is “the first research to show that exotic earthworms are harmful to rare native vegetation in northern forests,” says Michael Gundale of Michigan Technological University in Houghton, who presents this work in the December issue of Conservat

Wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest are in trouble — 26 populations are listed as threatened or endangered — and many conservationists fear hatcheries are a big part of the problem. In support of this belief, new research suggests that hatchery-reared steelhead are a threat to wild chinook in the Snake River.

“Our work suggests that steelhead released from hatcheries may increase the extinction risk of wild populations of Snake River chinook,” say Phillip Levin and John Williams of the N

Faced with a patient who is ‘tired all the time’ and reports ‘pain in my body every day’, many General Practitioners may struggle to identify fibromyalgia, a little-known but debilitating condition as the cause of their patient’s suffering.

Fibromyalgia is a widespread and yet little-recognised and little-understood pain and fatigue disorder that is thought to affect millions world-wide. Symptoms include persistent pain – the body interprets touch or movement as pain although there is no t

Oil from the wrecked tanker off the northwest coast of Spain had already reached the Spanish coast when ESA’s Envisat satellite acquired this radar image of the oil slick, stretching more than 150 km, on Sunday, 17 November, at 10.45 UTC.

The 26-year-old tanker, Prestige, can be seen as a bright white point located about 100 km off the coast. Support vessels are identifiable as smaller white points surrounding the ship. The huge oil slick is clearly visible as a dark plume emanating from the