As mammals, our internal (circadian) clock is regulated by the patterns of light and dark we experience. But how that information is transmitted from the eye to the biological clock in the brain has been a matter of scientific debate. Scientists had suspected that a molecule called melanopsin, which is found in the retina, plays an important role.

Now researchers at Stanford University and Deltagen Inc. have confirmed that melanopsin does indeed transmit light information from the eye to th

Genome of Ciona intestinalis yields new insights into the origins of complex biological systems

The streamlined genome of Ciona intestinalis, a common sea squirt closely related to vertebrates on the evolutionary tree, is providing new clues about the origins of key vertebrate systems and structures including the human hormone, nervous and immune systems.

In an article for the December 13, 2002 issue of the journal Science, an international consortium of researchers reports

Impacts on ecosystems are greater than previously anticipated

Projected increases in rainfall variability resulting from changes in global climate can rapidly reduce productivity and alter the composition of grassland plants, according to scientists funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Although the diversity of plant species is increased in this scenario, the most important or dominant grasses were more water-stressed and their growth was reduced. Carbon dioxide release by

Work has implications for repairing human heart muscle after heart attacks

Experiments on zebrafish provide important clues that could eventually lead to the ability to regenerate damaged human heart muscle, say researchers from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Children’s Hospital Boston. Reporting in the Dec. 13 issue of Science, a team led by HHMI investigator Mark T. Keating, MD, senior associate, department of Cardiology, showed for the first time that zebrafish can reg

Using a powerful new instrument at the South Pole, a team of cosmologists has produced the most detailed images of the early Universe ever recorded. The research team, which was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), has made public their measurements of subtle temperature differences in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation. The CMB is the remnant radiation that escaped from the rapidly cooling Universe about 400,000 years after the Big Bang. Images of the CMB provide researchers

Scientists all over the world hunt for anti-mutagens, substances protecting against mutations. Where they can find them? It was suggested and later proved that most anti-mutagens are located in those organs and biological liquids, which are connected with the process of reproduction. The latter is the key point in the life cycle, in which genome disorders should be minimal. Anti-mutagens were found in seeds, spores, eggs, and sperm. It was also established that anti-mutagens are formed in certain bac