Scientists have identified what may be a completely new way in which bacteria defend themselves against their hosts. The bacteria have stolen a key defensive gene from the very animals that they are invading – and are now using it against them. This research from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) is featured in today’s issue of the open access journal Genome Biology.
EMBL Team Leader Toby Gibson points out that such a discovery has clear medical implications. “This study give
To convert a gaseous fuel into a clean liquid one is the target of the research project being undertaken by the School of Industrial Engineering and Telecommunications Engineers of Bilbao in the Basque Country. It involves, in the final analysis, obtaining fuels which do not have contaminant components, i.e. sulphur, nitrogen or aromatic components.
Participating in this project, financed by the MARCO programme of the European Union, are nine groups from different European countries, under t
Thanks to biophysicists, statistics has reached the most intimate aspect of life – regulation of genes’ activity. Investigation on probabilistic aspects of molecular biology has been supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the INTAS Foundation.
Regulation of genes’ activity is one of the most important biological problems which has not been solved so far. A cell switches on and off its genes through multiple factors, which, if required, interact with certain sections of a
While the Cassini spacecraft has been flying toward Saturn, chemists on Earth have been making plastic pollution like that raining through the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon, Titan.
Scientists suspect that organic solids have been falling from Titan’s sky for billions of years and might be compounds that set the stage for the next chemical step toward life. They collaborate in University of Arizona laboratory experiments that will help Cassini scientists interpret Titan data and plan a futur
An engineer at the University of Sheffield is leading a £4.5m project that could revolutionise the way scientists, medics and others see the world – by allowing the earlier detection of cancer, the instant analysis of medical screening tests, and permitting the emergency and security services to work effectively in murky surroundings. It will also open up broad tracts of science to unique high-quality imaging by enabling physicists to understand better the most fundamental interactions of matter, by
Such research could offer important evolutionary insights into the nature of intelligence in primates
Until now, primatologists believed lemurs to be primitive, ancient offshoots of the primate family tree, with far less intelligence than their more sophisticated cousins, monkeys, apes and humans. But at the Duke University Primate Center, with the gentle touch of his nose to a computer screen, the ringtail lemur called Aristides is teaching psychologist Elizabeth Brannon a startling