http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. For the first time, scientists have built completely flat, two-layer ice. While theoreticians have predicted that such ices are formed by squeezing water molecules between two surfaces, scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Ruhr-Universitat Bochum are the first to create it. All it took was collaboration, creativity, and the absence of pressure. http://www.physorg.com/news171729768.html Chemistry Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:47:28 EST news171729768 A new method to induce protein folding by taking the pressure off of proteins is up to 100 times faster than previous methods, and could help guide more accurate computer simulations for how complex proteins fold, according to research by a team of University of Illinois scientists accepted for publication in the journal Nature Methods and posted on the journal's Web site May 31. http://www.physorg.com/news163095980.html Chemistry Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:27:05 EST news163095980 (PhysOrg.com) -- The discovery more than a decade ago of leptin, an appetite-suppressing hormone secreted by fat tissue, generated headlines and great hopes for an effective treatment for obesity. But hopes dimmed when it was found that obese people are unresponsive to leptin due to development of leptin resistance in the brain. Now, researchers at Children's Hospital Boston report the first agents demonstrated to sensitize the brain to leptin: oral drugs that are already FDA-approved and known to be safe. Findings were published January 7 by the journal Cell Metabolism. http://www.physorg.com/news150468469.html Biology Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:47:49 EST news150468469 A University of Iowa researcher and colleagues at the University of Michigan have discovered a direct link between disruption of a critical cellular housekeeping process and fatty liver disease, a condition that causes fat to accumulate in the liver. http://www.physorg.com/news147966719.html Biology Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:51:59 EST news147966719 Water is no passive spectator of biological processes; it is an active participant. Protein folding is thus a self-organized process in which the actions of the solvent play a key role. So far, the emphasis in studies of protein folding processes has been on observation of the protein backbone and its side chains. Researchers led by Martin Gruebele and Martina Havenith have now been able to detect changes in the protein -water network during protein folding in real time. http://www.physorg.com/news137853118.html Chemistry Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:31:58 EST news137853118