news 2011

It's no secret that long-distance, west-to-east air travel – Seattle to Paris, for example – can raise havoc with a person's sleep and waking patterns, and that the effects are substantially less pronounced when traveling in the opposite direction. Now researchers, including a University of Washington biologist, have found hints that differing molecular processes in an area of the brain known as the suprachiasmatic nucleus might play a significant role in those jet lag differences.

A team of researchers has overcome a major hurdle in the quest to design a specialized type of molecular sieve that could make the production of gasoline, plastics and various chemicals more cost effective and energy efficient. After more than a decade of research, the team devised a means for developing free-standing, ultra-thin zeolite nanosheets that as thin films can speed up the filtration process and require less energy.

The latest results from an expedition to Mount Everest that looked at the body's response to low oxygen levels suggest that drugs or procedures that promote the body's production of a chemical compound called nitric oxide (NO) could improve the recovery of critically ill patients in intensive care. Oxygen is required by all larger organisms, including humans, to survive.

The chemical reaction which makes some poisonous plants so deadly has been described by researchers at the University of Bristol in a paper published today in Angewandte Chemie. Professor Adrian Mulholland in the School of Chemistr y and colleagues successfully analyzed why a particular toxic product originating from sodium fluoroacetate (a colourless salt used as a rat poison) is formed in an enzyme.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. An Illinois research team has succeeded in overcoming one major obstacle to a promising technology that simultaneously reduces atmospheric carbon dioxide and produces fuel. University of Illinois chemical and biological engineering professor Paul Kenis and his research group joined forces with researchers at Dioxide Materials, a startup company, to produce a catalyst that improves artificial photosynthesis.

ESA finds that Venus has an ozone layer too ESA's Venus Express spacecraft has discovered an ozone layer high in the atmosphere of Venus. Comparing its properties with those of the equivalent layers on Earth and Mars will help astronomers refine their searches for life on other planets. Venus Express made the discovery while watching stars seen right at the edge of the planet set through its atmosphere.

The ground beneath your feet could hide a sleeping giant. Globally, soils store three times as much carbon as there is in the atmosphere or in living plants. Scientists don't know what will happen to this carbon in response to climate change. It could enter the atmosphere as CO2, a greenhouse gas, and further accelerate climate change.

The space between the stars in the Milky Way and all other galaxies is full of dust and gas, the raw materials from which stars and planets are made. But the dynamics of these galactic mosh pits, which are perhaps best known through the spectacular images from the Hubble Space Telescope of towering nebulas caught in the act of churning out stars, are still mysterious.

Oct. First comet found with ocean-like water ANN ARBOR, Mich.—New evidence supports the theory that comets delivered a significant portion of Earth's oceans, which scientists believe formed about 8 million years after the planet itself. The findings, which involve a University of Michigan astronomer, are published Oct.

Researchers find recipe for "perfect plastic” Researchers have solved a long-standing problem that could revolutionise the way new plastics are developed. The breakthrough, involving researchers at Durham University and the University of Leeds, will allow experts to create the 'perfect plastic' with specific uses and properties by using a high-tech 'recipe book'.

Scientists have discovered how living organisms – including humans – avoid poisoning from carbon monoxide generated by natural cell processes. Carbon monoxide is a toxic gas that can prove fatal at high concentrations; the gas is most commonly associated with faulty domestic heating systems and car fumes, and is often referred to as 'the silent killer'.

Gamers helped to solve the structure of a retrovirus enzyme whose configuration had stumped scientists for more than a decade. The gamers achieved their discovery by playing Foldit, an online game that allows players to collaborate and compete in predicting the structure of protein molecules. After scientists repeatedly failed to piece together the structure of a protein-cutting enzyme from an AIDS-like virus, they called in the Foldit players.

MIT-led research demonstrates method that could allow inexpensive carbon materials to store the volatile gas at room temperature. CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Hydrogen has long been considered a promising alternative to fossil fuels for powering cars, trucks and even homes. But one major obstacle has been finding lightweight, robust and inexpensive ways of storing the gas, whose atoms are so tiny they can easily escape from many kinds of containers.

Lee Cronin [mp4] Scientists at the University of Glasgow say they have taken their first tentative steps towards creating 'life' from inorganic chemicals potentially defining the new area of 'inorganic biology'. Professor Lee Cronin, Gardiner Chair of Chemistry in the College of Science and Engineering, and his team have demonstrated a new way of making inorganic-chemical-cells or iCHELLS.

Regulations that control chemicals used to make the drug 'ice' work, but they come at a cost, according to new research published today in the journal Addiction. Lead author Rebecca McKetin from the Centre for Mental Health Research at The Australian National University said the paper reviewed the results of credible studies on the impacts of what are known as 'precursor regulations'.

Researchers have successfully incorporated a diagnostic biological "computer" network in human cells. This network recognizes certain cancer cells using logic combinations of five cancer-specific molecular factors, triggering cancer cells destruction. Yaakov (Kobi) Benenson, from ETH Zurich, has spent a large part of his career developing biological computers that operate in living cells.

Tiny particles that measure microRNA levels in tissue samples could help diagnose and monitor many diseases. CAMBRIDGE, Mass. ' About 10 years ago, scientists discovered a new type of genetic material called microRNA, which appears to turn genes on or off inside a cell. More recently, they found that these genetic snippets often go haywire in cancer cells, contributing to tumors' uncontrollable growth.

Exposure during pregnancy to flame retardant chemicals commonly found in the home is linked to lower birthweight babies, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley's School of Public Health. In the study, to appear Tuesday, Aug. 30, in the peer-reviewed publication American Journal of Epidemiology , researchers found that every tenfold increase in levels of PBDEs, or polybrominated diphenyl ethers, in a mother's blood during pregnancy corresponded to a 115 gram (4.1 ounce) drop in her baby's birthweight.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. A new physics-based theory could give researchers a deeper understanding of the unusual, slow dynamics of liquids composed of large polymers. This advance provides a better picture of how polymer molecules respond under fast-flow, high-stress processing conditions for plastics and other polymeric materials.

University of Minnesota professor part of international team that finds primordial cloud of hydrogen to be centrally powered MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (08/17/2011) —University of Minnesota physics and astronomy professor Claudia Scarlata in the College of Science and Engineering is part of an international collaboration that has shed light on the power source of a rare vast cloud of glowing gas in the early Universe.