At the Hubrecht Laboratory in Utrecht, the biologist Sylvia Fischer has discovered how organisms protect themselves against transposons. Transposons are pieces of DNA which can translocate themselves within the genome. Sometimes transposons cause damage to the DNA. Plants probably have a similar mechanism which protects them against viruses.

Biologists from Utrecht discovered that the nematode C. elegans keeps transposons in check with a sophisticated mechanism. Due to the mechanism, the tra

Protein movement can be simulated three times as fast than had been thought possible up to now. Researchers from Groningen achieved the gain in speed by leaving out the calculations concerning hydrogen atoms. Meanwhile research groups around the world are adapting their simulation programs.

Up until now researchers calculated all of the positions of atoms in a protein molecule after two femtoseconds. A femtosecond is one millionth of a billionth of a second. The research from Groningen revea

A first-of-its-kind, small-scale natural gas liquefaction facility designed by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory was unveiled today by Pacific Gas and Electric Company officials in Sacramento, Calif.

Other significant partners in the pioneering liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility effort include the California Energy Commission, Sacramento Air Quality Management District, SoCal Gas Company and South Coast Air Quality M

Theoretical physicist Lennaert Huiszoon has described a new family of strings in research conducted at the National Institute for Nuclear Physics and High Energy Physics. He investigated so-called open strings which can describe elementary particles with a strong interaction.

With string theory, physicists are trying to construct a unifying theory for gravity and quantum mechanics. The theory describes extremely heavy and very small objects such as the universe shortly after the Big Bang or

Primates found in Brazil’s Amazon rain forest

Conservation International announced today the discovery of two new species of titi monkey in Brazil’s Amazon rain forest. The findings are published in a just-released special supplement to the journal Neotropical Primates.

They were described by Marc van Roosmalen, a primatologist at Brazil’s National Institute for Amazon Research (INPA), his son, Tomas van Roosmalen, and Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation Internat

Babywalkers are associated with significant delay in achieving normal locomotor milestones in infants, such as crawling, standing, and walking, and should be discouraged, concludes a study in this week’s BMJ.

Researchers in Ireland surveyed parents of 190 normal healthy infants (83 boys and 107 girls), born at term and attending registered day care centres. They asked parents to record the age at which their child reached various developmental milestones including rolling over, sitting alone