Stress happens, and over the eons all species of living things have evolved all sorts of ways to cope. Now, new research has revealed that organisms as diverse as humans and plants share a common set of stress-protection maneuvers that are choreographed by the metabolic machinery in their cells.

The research led by Sarah M. Assmann, the Waller Professor of Plant Biology at Penn State, will be published in the 15 August 2002 issue of the journal Nature.

“We have shown, in more deta

Researchers have developed a unique vaccine that destroys a deadly toxin produced by the parasite that causes malaria, which kills more than two million people each year. The vaccine appears extremely promising in animal studies, they say.

If the drug works in humans, it could become a more effective and longer lasting anti-malarial vaccine than those currently available, according to the researchers.

Details of the research will be presented next week (Aug. 21) in Boston at the 2

’Something new and exciting’ found serendipitously

A compound that could potentially immobilize the AIDS virus or selectively extract radionuclides from nuclear wastes at various U.S.high-level storage sites has been developed by a researcher at Sandia National Laboratories who wasn’t even looking for it.

An article in the current issue of Science describes characteristics of the newly discovered, extremely active compound, called niobium heteropolyanions (het

Ordinary alfalfa plants are being used as miniature gold factories that one day could provide the nanotechnology industry with a continuous harvest of gold nanoparticles.

An international research team from the University of Texas-El Paso (UTEP) and Mexico advanced the work at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) – part of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in Menlo Park, Calif. The researchers are using, as tiny factories, the alfalfa’s natural, physiological

Biologists at Vanderbilt and the University of Missouri have uncovered what could be a major clue into the mysterious molecular processes that direct cells to the correct locations within a developing embryo.

Understanding the molecular basis of these processes, and how they can go wrong, may ultimately lead to treatments for many birth defects, such as spina bifida that afflicts between 800 to 1,000 babies born each year in the United States.

Writing in the August issue of the sc

To make an omelet, you need to break some eggs. Not nearly so well known is that breaking eggs also can lead to new information about the evolution of birds and dinosaurs, a topic of hot debate among leading biologists.

Drs. Alan Feduccia and Julie Nowicki of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have done just that. They opened a series of live ostrich eggs at various stages of development and found what they believe is proof that birds could not have descended from dinosaurs. Th