A broad group of discoveries about the biological powers of “small-RNA” molecules, some of which were made by researchers at Oregon State University, will be hailed on Friday as the scientific “Breakthrough of the Year” by the journal Science. Science is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society, and each year the prestigious journal identifies what it believes were the top 10 research advances of the year.
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Using models that simulate the interaction between global climate and land ecosystems, atmospheric scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have shown that compensating for the carbon dioxide “greenhouse effect” by decreasing the amount of sunlight reaching the planet (geoengineering) could create a more vigorous ecosystem while helping to curb global warming.
The study suggests that planetary-scale engineering projects to lessen the amount of solar radiation reaching the
Last April Swedish scientists discovered high levels of a potentially cancer-causing chemical called acrylamide in wide range of starch-containing foods that are fried or baked, particularly french fries, potato chips and crackers. The announcement received worldwide publicity. But at the time, no one knew where the acrylamide came from, how it was formed, or, indeed, if there is a link between acrylamide in food and cancer. The findings were quickly confirmed by the British Food Standards Agency. Ea
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered a possible new mechanism for regulating large groups of genes. While conducting yeast research on a potential new anticancer drug, the team identified a mechanism that enables the genome to silence large numbers of genes simultaneously, rather than each gene individually.
The finding emerged during research studying the molecular action of the drug rapamycin. Rapamycin currently is used to suppress the immu
What’s seven feet long, 250 million years old, and currently lurking in the depths of Oregon’s Rogue River? It’s the green sturgeon, the craggy, shark-like fish that has quietly eked out a living since the time of the dinosaurs. But according to a new study published by researchers from the Bronx-Zoo based Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups, this living fossil is extremely vulnerable to both overfishing and habitat alteration such as water diversion for irrigation and pollu
The Zeolite Crystal Growth (ZCG) experiment got off to a successful start this week aboard the International Space Station.
Hard as a rock, yet able to absorb liquids and gases like a sponge, zeolites form the backbone of the chemical processes industry. Virtually all the world’s gasoline is produced or upgraded using zeolites. Improving zeolites could make gasoline production more efficient or lead to ways of storing clean-burning hydrogen for fuel. Zeolites can also be applied to
Changes to farming practices in rice paddies in China may have led to a decrease in methane emissions, and an observed decline in the rate that methane has entered the Earth’s atmosphere over the last 20 years, a NASA-funded study finds.
Changsheng Li, a professor of natural resources in the University of New Hampshire’s Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, and lead author of the study, notes that in the early 1980s Chinese farmers began draining their paddies midw
Scientists are still learning what’s in a drop of ocean water, according to this week’s Nature Magazine. And the answers have implications for the whole planet, says co-author Craig Carlson, an oceanographer at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Carlson is an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology.
About ten thousand bacterioplankton of the type SAR 11 are found in every drop of seawater. And yet, as explained in the article, which
Research continues in an effort to determine if these neural cells can be transplanted to treat stroke, brain tumors and neurodegenerative disorders
Researchers at Cedars-Sinai’s Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute have for the first time demonstrated that stem cells from whole adult bone marrow can be differentiated into several types of cells of the central nervous system.
A long-term objective of this research is to determine if these neural stem cells can be trans
Life expectancy and prosperity will continue to rise and food production should keep up with population growth, but the Kyoto agreement will have little effect on global warming according to this week’s Christmas issue of the BMJ.
Using official statistics and global trends, Bjørn Lomborg, Director of the Danish Environmental Assessment Institute and author of The Skeptical Environmentalist attempts to draw a reasonably good picture of the true state of the world.
Life expectancy fo
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is lending EUR 300 million to finance the final phase of construction of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. The loan will also help to finance the instrumentation to record and analyse the high-energy particle collisions at the LHC. A loan to enable construction of this major project was foreseen by CERN’s governing Council when it approved the LHC in 1996.
The EIB, the European Union’s long term
POLYMAT, the University of the Basque Country’s Institute of Polymer Materials, is helping to solve the problem of contamination of polymers obtained through polymerisation processes involving emulsions. With European funding obtained four years ago, the project on removing monomer residues from polymers was undertaken. POLYMAT has been working in this field with the collaboration of three other universities (from Germany, Greece and Switzerland) as well as three foreign companies.
Unfortun
Two scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), Research Associate John S. Reader, D.Phil, and Professor Gerald F. Joyce, M.D., Ph.D., both of the institute’s Department of Molecular Biology, have succeeded in creating an enzyme based on a “binary” genetic code–one containing only two different subunits.
This research, described in the latest issue of the journal Nature, demonstrates that Darwinian evolution can occur in a genetic system with only two bases, and it also suppo
People looking forward to eating raw oysters over the holidays will welcome news that scientists are making progress in the fight against a rare but deadly disease associated with the tasty bivalves.
Two University of Florida researchers report curing mice of the disease by using a virus to attack its bacterial source – Vibrio vulnificus. The scientists say the research may lead to techniques to purify oysters after harvest but before they reach raw bars and seafood markets – and might one
In a significant scientific advance, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have identified or confirmed 490 proteins in human blood serum — nearly doubling the number of known serum proteins, according to a paper accepted for publication in the December issue of Molecular and Cellular Proteomics.
“We have performed the most extensive identification of proteins in serum to date,” said Joel Pounds, corresponding author and a PNNL staff scientist. “We s
Jolly Old St. Nick depends on his team of reindeer to complete his Christmas rounds on time. But new research indicates that, because of the world’s changing climate, Santa might want to start thinking of new ways to power his sleigh.
Scientists have long known that rain falling on snow in the far northern latitudes during winter months can play havoc with herds of hoofed animals – primarily reindeer, caribou and musk ox – that feed on lichens and mosses growing on the soil surface. In
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