Scientists have determined how to fortify the cassava plant, a staple root crop in many developing countries, with enough vitamins, minerals and protein to provide the poor and malnourished with a day’s worth of nutrition in a single meal. The researchers have further engineered the cassava plant so it can resist the crop’s most damaging viral threats and are refining methods to reduce cyanogens, substances that yield poisonous cyanide if they are not properly removed from the food before consumption.
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Researchers are using minute, naturally occurring proteins called zinc fingers to engineer T-cells to one day treat AIDS in humans. Using the zinc fingers, scientists have shown that they could reduce the viral load of immune-deficient mice transplanted with engineered T cells.
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Scientists in Spain and Italy have identified a group of proteins in laboratory rats that could help explain two enduring medical mysteries — why women live longer than men and why calorie restriction stands as the only proven method of extending longevity.
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Predicting climate change depends on many factors not properly included in current forecasting models, such as how the major polar ice caps will move in the event of melting around their edges. This in turn requires greater understanding of the processes at work when ice is under stress, influencing how it flows and moves.
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By counteracting the underlying molecular mechanism for high blood pressure in the spontaneously hypertensive rat, researchers found not only how that ailment and others arise in mammals, but also how the conditions may be treated simultaneously.
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The Center for Nanoscale Materials’ newly operational Hard X-ray Nanoprobe at the US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory is one of the world’s most powerful X-ray microscopes. It has been designed to study novel nanoscale materials and devices aimed at, for example, harvesting solar energy more efficiently, providing more efficient lighting, or enabling next-generation computing.
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Particle colliders creating black holes that could devour the Earth. Sounds like a great Hollywood script. But, according to UC Santa Barbara Physics Professor Steve Giddings, it’s pure fiction. Giddings has co-authored a paper documenting his study of the safety of microscopic black holes that might possibly be produced by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is nearing completion in Europe.
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Scientists have identified a process, a synergistic encounter between two molecules, that may account for the extreme allergic reactions some people experience. By silencing at least one of these molecules, it may be possible to treat allergies.
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Researchers report that the photoreceptors in an insect’s eye can change their traditional functions during metamorphosis. The researchers found that when photoreceptors responsible for detecting the color green die off during metamorphosis a second class of photoreceptors — those responsible for detecting the color blue — then fill the role of detecting the color green. These rare switches, the authors speculate, are likely the result of changing life patterns.
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