Scientists have long toyed with the idea of putting to work a special class of biological catalysts, called ribozymes, as therapeutic agents. These molecular scissors would harness the activities of overly active genes that contribute to diseases like cancer by cutting their immediate products, messenger RNAs, into unusable pieces. The advantage of this approach, is that these molecules can be made to recognize very specific targets. This is reported in this month issue of EMBO reports.

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The genome sequence of Streptomyces coelicolor , one of the family of common soil bacteria that produce more than two thirds of the world’s antibiotic medicines, will be published in the journal Nature this week.

Streptomyces are almost ubiquitous in the soils and are responsible for its familiar ‘earthy’ smell. The genome data, collected by British scientists from the John Innes Centre and The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, is already being used in research that will help de

Nowadays society is deeply concerned with the safety issues, the flight safety in particular. Despite the technological progress, people can not do without dogs` assistance, as no device is capable of replacing the dogs` scent in search of explosive substances and drugs. Dogs are indispensable for differentiating between different individuals by specific smells. To work efficiently a dog needs excellent scent and ability to learn quickly. It is only in Russia that the unique animals -dog and jackal h

Coniferous trees are widespread in Russia, especially in Siberia, where taiga extends over tens of millions of hectares. Cedars and pines grow also in the environs of cities and in city parks and suffer from human-induced changes in environment.

Of course, coniferous trees can withstand a low-level pollution. Acid gases or soil pollutants that trees absorb are actively transported and deposited in those parts of wood, which do not perform important functions, and some elements are re

Who has not wound up nowhere in an Internet search for information that should be available about a company, an institution, or an organization? Who has not then longed to have someone to talk to who could answer questions with no hassle or waste of time? Johan Åberg, from the Department of Computer Science at Linköping University, Sweden, has studied what such a human help system might look like.

Automatic help systems with computerized answers already exist. But they seldom work very well

A team of researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, together with researchers from ICMAB (CSIC) and other Russian and Ukrainian scientists, have discovered an unprecedented method for accurately controlling the formation of nanometric structures made of semiconducting material in the form of islets, using promising optoelectronic applications in the most advanced communication technology. The discovery was featured as a cover story by the prestigious Nanotechnology magazine.

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