A Mediterranean diet significantly lessens the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, shows a small Swedish study in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. But it takes a minimum of six weeks for the diet to take effect, the study shows.

The researchers were only able to study 51 people out of a possible 300, because of the various combinations of drugs patients were taking. In the end, 26 people with stable rheumatoid arthritis were assigned to an experimental Mediterranean/Cretan, diet for three

The universe has been mapped! Not the universe of stars, planets, and black holes, but the protein universe, the vast assemblage of biological molecules that are the building blocks of living cells and control the chemical processes which make those cells work. Researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley have created the first three-dimensional global map of the protein structure universe. This map provides important insight i

Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have discovered that Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt — a bacterium that produces natural protein insecticides that have been used by organic farmers for five decades — can also produce similar natural proteins that kill nematodes.

The discovery could pave the way for the development of an inexpensive and environmentally safe means of controlling the parasitic roundworms that each year destroy billions of dollars in crops, cause debilitating

Chains of molecules known as conducting polymers are versatile materials that can work like electronic circuits. Potential uses include flat panel displays, solar panels, sensing devices and transistors, to name just a few. Their invention won three scientists the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

But to make useful devices from conducting polymers requires a degree of chemical wizardry that often proves elusive. University of Illinois at Chicago chemistry professor Luke Hanley has found a new and

Montreal Neurological Institute researcher Dr. Wayne Sossin has discovered that nerve cells can bypass the cell’s normal protein-making machinery in the same way that viruses do when they infect a cell. In a study published on-line today in Nature Neuroscience, Dr. Sossin and colleagues describe the first example of regulated IRES (internal ribosome entry site) usage after a physiological stimulus in neurons.

When a virus infects a cell, its goal is to make more virus particles. To do t

Amid a fast game in a vast venue, sports photography seeks to freeze motion and isolate small portions of space for special consideration. In the scientific world of the ultrafast and ultrasmall, stroboscopic effects are achieved with greatly attenuated laser pulses. The advent of laser light served up in femtosecond (or 10^-15 second) bursts has helped to elucidate the molecular world by freezing their vibrational and rotational motions. Scientists would of course like to instigate and monitor even