Solving the mystery of what puts sperm “in the mood” In a potential advance toward a male contraceptive pill and new treatments for infertility, researchers are reporting the identification of key biochemical changes that put sperm “in the mood” for fertilization. Their study,...
News From The American Chemical Society , April 8, 2009
Medical News From The American Chemical Society — April 1, 2009
“Magic potion” in fly spit may shoo away blinding eye disease Researchers are reporting the first identification of a “magic potion” of proteins in the saliva of the black fly that help this blood-sucking pest spread parasites that cause “river blindness,” a devastating...
Two Innovative University Of Texas At Austin Biologists Become HHMI Early Career Scientists
Two University of Texas at Austin biologists join 50 of the nation’s best early career science faculty to focus on their boldest and potentially transformative research ideas with support from a new initiative from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). As Early Career Scientists, Dr. Dan...
EMBO Meeting 2009: Call For Abstracts And Registration
More than 120 researchers will speak at The EMBO Meeting 2009 - the first annual life sciences conference to be organized by the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and held in Amsterdam from 29 August to 1 September 2009. The EMBO Meeting 2009 advances the life sciences through broad programmes...
Ecological Consequences Of Late Quaternary Extinctions Of Megafauna
As humans spread over the globe from about 50 000 years ago, megafauna such as mammoths, giant kangaroos and many others vanished. How did this sudden loss of large herbivores affect ecosystems? This review finds evidence that in many places vegetation types changed dramatically, becoming less open and...
2009 Overton Prize Won By UC San Diego Bioengineering Professor Trey Ideker
University of California, San Diego bioengineering professor Trey Ideker - a network and systems biology pioneer - has won the International Society for Computational Biology’s Overton Prize. The Overton prize is awarded each year to an early-to-mid-career scientist who has already made a significant...
First Discovery Of “animals-only” Pigment Bilirubin In Plants - Journal Of The American Chemical Society
In a first-of-its-kind discovery that overturns conventional wisdom, scientists in Florida are reporting that certain plants - including the exotic “White Bird of Paradise Tree” - make bilirubin. Until now, scientists thought that pigment existed only in animals. The finding may change scientific...
Self-Digestion As A Means Of Survival
In times of starvation, cells tighten their belts: they start to digest their own proteins and cellular organs. The process - known as autophagy - takes place in special organelles called autophagosomes. It is a strategy that simple yeast cells have developed as a means of survival when times get tough,...
Footprints Found At Ileret, Kenya, Display Anatomically Modern Features
Ancient footprints found at Rutgers’ Koobi Fora Field School show that some of the earliest humans walked like us and did so on anatomically modern feet 1.5 million years ago. Published as the cover story in the Feb. 27 issue of the journal Science, this anatomical interpretation is the conclusion...
Tapping Nature’s Secrets For Building Tiny Tools
Next time you have an unlucky encounter with a crab’s pinchers, consider that the claw tips may be reinforced with bromine-rich biomaterial 1.5 times harder than acrylic glass and extremely fracture resistant, says a University of Oregon scientist. Residents on the U.S. West Coast may have had...