Of the estimated 10,000 to 100,000 microbial species that inhabit our planet, scientists can only coax a few thousand to grow in the laboratory. As a result, efforts to categorize the vast diversity of microbes are lagging far behind attempts to classify plants, animals and insects. Now a report published in the current issue of the journal Science suggests that some of these so-called uncultivable microorganisms might not be so out of reach after all.
Tammi Kaeberlein, Kim Lewis and Klava
A research team jointly involving the IRD, the CEA and the CNRS has very recently found phytochromes in a strain of nitrogen-fixing bacterium, Bradyrhizobium (1), symbiont on certain tropical leguminous plants (the Aeschynomene). Techniques of molecular biology, biophysics and biochemistry revealed that the newly-discovered phytochrome has an essential role as regulator of the bacterium’s photosystem synthesis. An identical function was shown in the photosynthetic bacterium Rhodopseudomonas palustris
A model of a system for growing plants to plan biological experiments in space has just left the company of ROVSING, in Ballerup near Copenhagen, on its way to ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands.
The full name of this experiment reference model is European Modular Cultivation System Experiment Reference Model (EMCS ERM). This will be used at ESTEC to plan and carry out experiments for growing plants in space. Then in 2003 the EMCS Flight Model will
A team of UK astronomers announced this month the discovery of cannibalistic stars that explain one of the mysteries surrounding the Big Bang. The stars are almost as old as the Universe and they reveal what space was like in the very beginning.
The team from the Open University found that a group of 14-billion-year-old stars were all in a spin (literally) because of a nasty phase earlier in their lives. They were, in short, cannibalistic stars. The scientists` discovery not only explains
iver air bags offer relatively little benefit in road vehicle crashes compared with seat belts, finds a study in this week’s BMJ.
Researchers in the United States identified all passenger vehicles that crashed during 1990-2000 in which the driver or passenger, or both, died. A sample of 51,031 driver-passenger pairs was analysed to estimate the association of driver air bags with driver fatality.
Having an air bag was associated with an 8% reduction in the risk of death, whether the
Road vehicles may soon be fitted with pop-up bonnets, windscreen airbags and energy absorbing bumpers to improve pedestrian safety, according to researchers in this week’s BMJ.
Collisions between pedestrians and road vehicles are responsible for more than a third of all traffic related fatalities and injuries worldwide, yet research has so far concentrated almost exclusively on increasing the survival of vehicle occupants, argue researchers at the University of Virginia, USA.
Crash
In October 2022, astronomers were stunned by what was quickly dubbed the BOAT — the brightest-of-all-time gamma-ray burst (GRB). Now an international science team reports that data from NASA’s Fermi…
A research team led by Prof Ursula Wurstbauer from the Institute of Physics at the University of Münster has investigated how electrons in two-dimensional crystals can be collectively excited and…
Federal funding will allow University of Rochester scientists and their European collaborators to study the feasibility of coherent light sources beyond x-rays. Since the laser was invented in the 1960s,…
Zirconium combined with silicon nitride enhances the conversion of propane — present in natural gas — needed to create in-demand plastic, polypropylene. Polypropylene is a common type of plastic found…
Researchers combined single-molecule experiments, molecular dynamics simulations and quantum mechanics to validate the findings published in PNAS. What puts the electronic pep in peptides? A folded structure, according to a…
By identifying mechanisms unique to leukaemia-causing cells, a French-Swiss team has discovered a new way to fight the disease. Acute myeloid leukaemia is one of the deadliest cancers. Leukaemic stem…
Distinctive processes could provide hints on how to use next-generation materials. A rose by any other name is a rose, but what of a crystal? Osaka Metropolitan University-led researchers have…
… pointing the way to future wireless communication channels. It is a scene many of us are familiar with: You’re working on your laptop at the local coffee shop with…
Next-generation soft robotics and wearable technologies could sport foam-based fluidic circuits. When picturing next-generation wearables and robotics, the foam filling in your couch cushions is likely not the first thing…
… developed through international scientific collaboration. In a scientific breakthrough, an international research team from Germany’s Forschungszentrum Jülich and Korea’s IBS Center for Quantum Nanoscience (QNS) developed a quantum sensor…
Linguist from Chemnitz University of Technology and computer science graduate from LMU Munich have developed a free web application that enables colourful, intuitive text analyses for research, for teaching or…
Researchers at QuTech developed somersaulting spin qubits for universal quantum logic. Researchers at QuTech developed somersaulting spin qubits for universal quantum logic. This achievement may enable efficient control of large…