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. Researchers at the University of Warwick have found how a citric acid-based Achilles heel used by a pathogen that attacks the popular African Violet house plant could be exploited not just to save African Violets but also to provide a potentially effective treatment for Anthrax. http://www.physorg.com/news154681012.html Biology Tue, 24 Feb 2009 07:00:26 EST news154681012 Since the sequencing of the human genome eight years ago, enormous progress has been made in analyzing and understanding it. Nevertheless, the function of most human genes is still barely understood. An important first step in determining the function of a gene or protein is to compare its sequence with the sequences of hundreds of other organisms that are experimentally easier to investigate. From the functions of related genes or proteins identified in these database searches, the researchers can often infer the unknown functions of human or animal genes. http://www.physorg.com/news154617817.html Biology Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:24:42 EST news154617817 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council have harnessed a new drug discovery tool to identify a new player in the body's insulin secretion process. This finding could spark a completely new class of drugs to treat type 2 diabetes. http://www.physorg.com/news154538750.html Biology Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:27:13 EST news154538750 (PhysOrg.com) -- Roman artefacts which are nearly two thousand years old with similarities to ancient remains found at Pompeii in Italy will be examined at the Science and Technology Facilities Council`s ISIS neutron source this weekend. (21-22 February 2009). Researchers hope to learn more about our heritage by discovering whether the items were imported from southern Italy, or manufactured using similar techniques in Britain. http://www.physorg.com/news154360692.html Other Sciences Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:58:43 EST news154360692 In landlocked South Dakota, hundreds of miles and 1,600 feet of elevation from the nearest ocean, South Dakota State University professor Francis Ting studies the structure of breaking waves like those that pound the world`s coastlines. http://www.physorg.com/news154275025.html Technology Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:11:14 EST news154275025 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new imaging technique developed by researchers at the University of Illinois overcomes the limit of diffraction and can reveal the atomic structure of a single nanocrystal with a resolution of less than one angstrom. http://www.physorg.com/news154189424.html Nanotechnology Wed, 18 Feb 2009 14:27:27 EST news154189424 The 6.7 magnitude earthquake that struck the Los Angeles community of Northridge at 4:30 a.m. on Jan. 17, 1994, killed 57 people, injured more than 5,000, and caused an estimated $20 billion in damage, making it the costliest seismic disaster in U.S. history. http://www.physorg.com/news154119920.html Space & Earth Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:05:56 EST news154119920 People debating politics are well-advised to shed more light than heat. Engineers working in optical technologies have the same aspiration. http://www.physorg.com/news154097655.html Nanotechnology Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:54:46 EST news154097655 (PhysOrg.com) -- Castoreum, the dried scent glands of the Canadian beaver, was once one of the most valuable scent components derived from animals. Castoreum contains a complex mixture of substances, including a number of compounds known as nupharamine alkaloids. Many of these have been structurally characterized. Researchers working with Horst Kunz at the University of Mainz (Germany) have now, as they report in the journal Angewandte Chemie, determined the stereochemistry (precise spatial structure) of another castoreum component by using a total synthesis. A total synthesis is the complete chemical synthesis of a complex organic natural substance from simple, easily attainable starting materials. http://www.physorg.com/news154009419.html Chemistry Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:24:13 EST news154009419 (PhysOrg.com) -- A hallucinogenic compound found in a plant indigenous to South America and used in shamanic rituals regulates a mysterious protein that is abundant throughout the body, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have discovered. http://www.physorg.com/news153670865.html Chemistry Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:21:51 EST news153670865 A groundbreaking study has revealed in great detail how enzymes in the cell cooperate to make fat. These enzymes are integrated into a single molecular complex known as fatty acid synthase. This complex is regarded as a potential target for developing new anti-obesity and anti-cancer drugs. http://www.physorg.com/news153600180.html Biology Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:52:16 EST news153600180 The structure, described February 8 in an advance online publication of the journal Nature, provides fresh insights into the elegant dance that viral proteins perform to create the infectious structure that causes all manner of misery and disease, say researchers. While the virus they studied, HK97, only infects bacteria, well-known viruses such as herpes and HIV are also known to assemble an "intermediary" structure before morphing into its final assault-proof, infectious form. http://www.physorg.com/news153323957.html Biology Sun, 08 Feb 2009 14:00:14 EST news153323957 The bacterium behind one of mankind's deadliest scourges, tuberculosis, is helping researchers at the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory move closer to answering the decades-old question of what controls the switching on and off of genes that carry out all of life's functions. http://www.physorg.com/news153210369.html Chemistry Sat, 07 Feb 2009 06:27:11 EST news153210369 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have developed a new smart material that can bend under the influence of an internal heat source. The material could be used as an aerodynamic flap in cars, in order to stabilize the vehicles at high speeds. Because the entire structure actively bends, the material could have advantages over actuators that need to be externally fixed to a structure. http://www.physorg.com/news153140406.html Physics Fri, 06 Feb 2009 11:01:12 EST news153140406 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists can easily explain the structural order that makes steel and aluminium out of molten metal. And they have discovered the molecular changes that take place as water turns to ice. But, despite the fact that glass blowers have been plying their trade since the first century BC, we have only just begun to understand what makes molten glass solid. http://www.physorg.com/news153138163.html Physics Fri, 06 Feb 2009 10:32:20 EST news153138163 Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have recently demonstrated the ability to control the spin population of the individual quantum shell states of self-assembled indium arsenide (InAs) quantum dots (QDs). These results are significant in the understanding of QD behavior and scientists' ability to utilize QDs in active devices or for information processing. The scientists, from NRL's Materials Science and Technology Division, used a spin-polarized bias current from an iron (Fe) thin film contact and determined the strength of the interaction between spin-polarized electrons in the s, p and d shells. http://www.physorg.com/news153058811.html Physics Thu, 05 Feb 2009 12:20:43 EST news153058811 Research shows that it is possible to produce copper about 4 times stronger than commercial material - and doing so while also having a ductile material. As the thermal and electrical conductivity are also good, the manufacturing of, for example, electrical conductors with improved mechanical properties looks promising. http://www.physorg.com/news152963281.html Nanotechnology Wed, 04 Feb 2009 09:48:28 EST news152963281 Infants born with a rare form of inherited diabetes might avoid irreversible damage to their pancreases if they are treated immediately with sulfonylurea drugs rather than insulin, according to a new report in the February 4th issue of Cell Metabolism. http://www.physorg.com/news152892857.html Medicine & Health Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:14:41 EST news152892857 (PhysOrg.com) -- New research conducted in part by researchers at The George Washington University has led to novel insights into how feeding and dietary adaptations may have shaped the evolution of the earliest humans. http://www.physorg.com/news152859468.html Other Sciences Tue, 03 Feb 2009 04:58:12 EST news152859468 (PhysOrg.com) -- Conga lines of atoms wend their way through a crystal, their numbers growing as more and more atoms join the migration. The worm-like lines of atoms randomly converge, forming tangles that evolve into droplets of liquid that signal the beginning of the complicated process known as melting. http://www.physorg.com/news152814434.html Physics Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:28:02 EST news152814434 (PhysOrg.com) -- `Ferroelectric materials are interesting scientifically, and, while they are used for some things now, they are potentially useful for even more applications in the future,` Brian Stephenson tells PhysOrg.com. Stephenson is a scientist at Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Illinois. He has been working on a project to study chemical switching in a ferroelectric film. http://www.physorg.com/news152796442.html Physics Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:28:09 EST news152796442 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have discovered that a carefully built magnetic sandwich that interleaves layers of a magnetic alloy with a few nanometers of silver `spacer` has dramatically enhanced sensitivity -a 400-fold improvement in some cases. This material could lead to greatly improved magnetic sensors for a wide range of applications from weapons detection and non-destructive testing to medical devices and high-performance data storage. http://www.physorg.com/news152380708.html Physics Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:58:58 EST news152380708 A team of computer scientists at the University of Pennsylvania investigating the political, social and economic struggle between individual self-interest and the need to build a consensus have learned that, depending only on the structure of the network of participants, they can engineer surprising experimental results. http://www.physorg.com/news152373886.html Technology Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:05:22 EST news152373886 Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI) and several partner institutions have published the sequence and analysis of the complete genome of sorghum, a major food and fodder plant with high potential as a bioenergy crop. The genome data will aid scientists in optimizing sorghum and other crops not only for food and fodder use, but also for biofuels production. The comparative analysis of the sorghum genome appears in the January 29 edition of the journal Nature. http://www.physorg.com/news152370854.html Biology Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:14:41 EST news152370854 Scientists have already hooked brains directly to computers by means of metal electrodes, in the hope of both measuring what goes on inside the brain and eventually healing conditions such as blindness or epilepsy. In the future, the interface between brain and artificial system might be based on nerve cells grown for that purpose. In research that was recently featured on the cover of Nature Physics, Prof. Elisha Moses of the Physics of Complex Systems Department and his former research students Drs. Ofer Feinerman and Assaf Rotem have taken the first step in this direction by creating circuits and logic gates made of live nerves grown in the lab. http://www.physorg.com/news152364147.html Physics Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:22:49 EST news152364147 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers in Finland have created a form of carbon-nanotube based information storage that is comparable in speed to a type of memory commonly used in memory cards and USB "jump" drives. http://www.physorg.com/news152202897.html Nanotechnology Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:35:49 EST news152202897 A flood of data is emerging from genome research, including sequence data on proteins. To help science keep pace with this flow of knowledge, computer scientists, biophysicists and biochemists across the world have been developing advanced technologies to help derive accurately and quickly the three-dimensional structure of proteins from this data. http://www.physorg.com/news151252682.html Technology Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:38:02 EST news151252682 (PhysOrg.com) -- IBM Research scientists, in collaboration with the Center for Probing the Nanoscale at Stanford University, have demonstrated magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with volume resolution 100 million times finer than conventional MRI. http://www.physorg.com/news151073713.html Nanotechnology Tue, 13 Jan 2009 12:55:13 EST news151073713 All the genes that the exotic Tasmanian Tiger inherited only from its mother will be revealed by an international team of scientists in a research paper to be published on 13 January 2009 in the online edition of Genome Research. The research marks the first successful sequencing of genes from this carnivorous marsupial, which looked like a large tiger-striped dog and became extinct in 1936. The research also opens the door to the widespread, nondestructive use of museum specimens to learn why mammals become extinct and how extinctions might be prevented. http://www.physorg.com/news151002115.html Biology Mon, 12 Jan 2009 17:01:55 EST news151002115 Research led by Iowa State University scientists has them a step closer to finding a way to counter the Ebola virus. http://www.physorg.com/news150991288.html Biology Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:01:28 EST news150991288