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Scientists find that loops of DNA are key to tightly packing genetic material for cell division. Scientists first discovered chromosomes in the late 1800s, after the light microscope was invented. Using these microscopes, biologist Walter Flemming observed many tightly wound, elongated structures in cell nuclei.

Playing pop and rock music improves the performance of solar cells, according to new research from scientists at Queen Mary University of London and Imperial College London. The high frequencies and pitch found in pop and rock music cause vibrations that enhanced energy generation in solar cells containing a cluster of 'nanorods', leading to a 40 per cent increase in efficiency of the solar cells.

31 Oct 2013 BBSRC-funded researchers at the University of Manchester's Institute of Biotechnology have used the power of off-the-shelf computer gaming technology to capture previously unobservable atomic movements. The research is helping to chart one of nature's most complex entities known as 'glycomes' - the entire complement of carbohydrates within a cell.

Modified Botox could be used for the treatment of chronic pain and epilepsy A single injection could relieve pain for months Research could improve the quality of life for people who suffer from chronic pain conditions Scientists have manufactured a new bio-therapeutic molecule that could be used to treat neurological disorders such as chronic pain and epilepsy.

Proteins which reside in the membrane of cells play a key role in many biological processes and provide targets for more than half of current drug treatments. These membrane proteins are notoriously difficult to study in their natural environment, but scientists at the University of Oxford have now developed a technique to do just that, combining the use of sophisticated nanodiscs and mass spectrometers.

A common blue pigment used in the £5 note could have an important role to play in the development of a quantum computer, according to a paper published today in the journal Nature . The pigment, copper phthalocyanine (CuPc), which is similar to the light harvesting section of the chlorophyll molecule, is a low-cost organic semiconductor that is found in many household products.

Research by scientists at the University of Sheffield has given new insight on how some plants adapt to extreme conditions which could help in the future development of efficient crops. The study was carried out on plants native to southern Africa known as "Living Stones", or Lithops. These little succulents survive in the blazing deserts and rocky ground of southern Africa by blending in with surrounding pebbles to avoid being eaten and by burying themselves underground.

Researchers have identified a potential way to manipulate the immune system to improve its ability to fight off tuberculosis (TB). TB is a major problem for both humans and cattle and the new findings could help scientists to create better drugs to combat the disease in both. The disease is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which infects the lungs.

Bioengineers at UC Berkeley have shown that physical cues can replace certain chemicals when nudging mature cells back to a pluripotent stage, capable of becoming any cell type in the body. The researchers grew fibroblasts - cells taken from human skin and mouse ears - on surfaces with parallel grooves measuring 10 micrometers wide and 3 micrometers high.

What makes enzymes such fantastic catalysts? New research from the University of Bristol is significantly advancing our understanding of how these proteins increase the rate of chemical reaction. Using a combination of experimental approaches and multiscale computational methods, including the hybrid QM/MM (quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics) approach for which Karplus, Warshel and Levitt won this year's Nobel Prize for Chemistry, the team of researchers from England, Wales and Spain studied the enzyme dihydrofolate reductase - an important target for anti-infective and anti-cancer drugs.

A drug under development seems to have similar antidepressant effects as previously observed with ketamine, but without the same level of dangerous side effects seen when the anesthetic is abused as a party drug, according to a new Yale-led study. The findings of a randomized, placebo-controlled trial suggest a new generation of antidepressants that act upon the brain's glutamate system may offer rapid relief for millions of people suffering from chronic depression who have not responded to existing antidepressant medications.

Watch what happens when you bend and break the world's thinnest glass. This glass, discovered by Cornell researchers and their international team of collaborators, was recently featured in the Guinness Book of World Records and is made of the same compounds as everyday windowpanes. Now, a research team led by David A. Muller, professor of applied and engineering physics and co-director of the Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science, and Ute Kaiser, professor at the University of Ulm, has used an electron microscope to bend, deform and melt the one-molecule-thick glass.

New research by the School of Chemistry has significantly advanced our understanding of how enzymes (proteins) increase the rate of chemical reaction. Now potentially able to achieve greater control of enzyme action, this will clear the way for scientists to design new enzymes with important implications in a range of industries, and to develop new anti-infective and anti-cancer drugs.

It took several years to develop all the computational tools to make this happen, but the structures we can now reconstruct from this high-quality data are quite striking. More importantly, this new approach is allowing us to study the variation in chromosome structure on a cell-by-cell basis. Tim Stevens Scientists have developed a novel approach to determine the 3D structures of chromosomes in single cells, using hundreds of measurements of where different parts of the DNA get close to one another.

Researchers in Vienna shed light on the interplay of a worm's inner clocks For a long time, molecular chronobiology has almost exclusively focused on circadian rhythms that are driven by the changes of day and night and hence follow the daily cycle of the sun. However, especially in the sea, the cradle of evolution, organisms set their pace also according to the moon.

The fossilised remains of a reptile closely related to lizards are the oldest yet to be discovered. Two new fossil jaws discovered in Vellberg, Germany provide the first direct evidence that the ancestors of lizards, snakes and tuatara (known collectively as lepidosaurs), were alive during the Middle Triassic period - around 240 million years ago.

Intense molecular hydrogen formation shown in near infrared image of the reflection nebula IC 63 in the constellation Cassiopeia. The white bars represent polarization seen toward stars in the background of the nebula. The largest polarization shows the most intense emission, demonstrating that hydrogen formation influences alignment of the dust grain with a magnetic field.

Many animals, including humans, have internal clocks and calendars to help them regulate behavior, physiological functions and biological processes. Although scientists have extensively studied the timekeeping mechanisms that inform daily functions (circadian rhythms), they know very little about the timekeeping mechanisms that inform seasonal functions.

When termites munch on wood, the small bits are delivered to feed a community of unique microbes living in their guts, and in a complex process involving multiple steps, these microbes turn the hard, fibrous material into a nutritious meal for the termite host. One key step uses hydrogen to convert carbon dioxide into organic carbon-a process called acetogenesis-but little is known about which gut bacteria play specific roles in the process.

Chemistry professor Jonathan Sweedler, left, microbiology professor John Cronan, biochemistry professor John Gerlt and their colleagues developed a streamlined approach to discovering enzyme function. CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Scientists have sequenced the genomes of nearly 6,900 organisms, but they know the functions of only about half of the protein-coding genes thus far discovered.