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News Release Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Scripps Homepage ScrippsNews Home "Lost" samples from famous origin of life researcher could send the search for Earth's first life in a new direction March 22, 2011 By Robert Monroe Scripps Institution of Oceanography/University of California, San Diego Stanley Miller gained fame with his 1953 experiment showing the synthesis of organic compounds thought to be important in setting the origin of life in motion.

A new discovery about how molecules are broken down by the body, which will help pharmaceutical chemists design better drugs, has been made by researchers at the University of Bristol. Working with Professor Jeremy Harvey and Professor Adrian Mulholland of Bristol's School of Chemistry , Dr Julianna Olah, an EU Marie Curie Fellow in Bristol at the time, studied a class of enzymes ' cytochromes P450 - which play an important role in removing drug molecules from the body.

Princeton researchers have invented an extremely sensitive sensor that opens up new ways to detect a wide range of substances, from biological markers of cancer to hidden explosives. The sensor, which is the most sensitive of its kind to date and easy to produce, relies on a completely new architecture and fabrication technique developed by the Princeton researchers.

A new NASA-funded study demonstrates how a chemical that smells like rotten eggs - hydrogen sulfide - may have played a role in the formation of life on Earth. The study authors, including Andrew Aubrey of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, re-examined old test tubes from classic experiments performed in the 1950s by Stanley Miller, who was a graduate student at the University of Chicago.

The organic compounds surviving in fifty million year old fossilized reptile skin can be seen for the first time today, thanks to a stunning infra-red image produced by University of Manchester palaeontologists and geochemists. Published in the journal Royal Society Proceedings B , the brightly-coloured image shows the presence of amides - the organic compounds, or building blocks of life - in the ancient skin of a reptile, found in the 50 million year-old rocks of the Green River Formation in Utah, USA.

Researchers have revealed a new single-stage method for recharging the hydrogen storage compound ammonia borane. LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, March 21, 2011—Researchers have revealed a new single-stage method for recharging the hydrogen storage compound ammonia borane. The breakthrough makes hydrogen a more attractive fuel for vehicles and other transportation modes.

Scientists at the University of Birmingham have developed a molecular test that has tracked the global spread of a carrier of antibiotic resistance, according to a paper published online today by a leading medical journal. Researchers led by Professor Laura Piddock in the School of Immunity and Infection devised a specific test that can identify the carrier, known as a plasmid, and track its progress around the world in both humans and animals in various strains of E. coli.

New method for self-assembling molecules Researchers at the University of Sheffield have discovered a new way of making small molecules self-assemble into complex nanopatterns, which will push the limits of what is possible in `bottom-up´ methods of nanopatterning for advanced functional materials through molecular self-assembly.

Pictured are endothelial cells forming precursors of blood vessel networks. Individual endothelial cells were fluorescently tagged and tracked during tissue formation (left). According to their behavior, three clusters of cells could be identified (shown on the right as purple, light blue and dark blue, and unclustered cells colored in gray).

PA 73/11 A breakthrough by scientists at The University of Nottingham could provide hope for any allergy sufferers who have ever had to choose between their health and their household pet. The team of immunologists led by Drs Ghaem-Maghami and Martinez-Pomares in the University's School of Molecular Medical Sciences, and funded by the charity Asthma UK, have identified a cell component which plays a key role in triggering allergic responses to cat dander.

An international team of scientists from Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Europe, led by the University of Sydney, has solved the structural puzzle of the main component of elastin, the protein that gives our vital organs their ability to expand and contract. The discovery could lead to major advances in treatment for burns victims and for patients who need to replace damaged blood vessels.

Scientists have unravelled the shape of the protein that gives human tissues their elastic properties in what could lead to the development of new synthetic elastic polymers. University of Manchester researchers, working with colleagues in Australia and the United States, used state-of-the-art techniques to reveal the structure of tropoelastin, the main component of elastin.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, will carry a next generation, onboard "chemical element reader" to measure the chemical ingredients in Martian rocks and soil. The instrument is one of 10 that will help the rover in its upcoming mission to determine the past and present habitability of a specific area on the Red Planet.

An international team of astronomers have identified a thick stellar disc in the Andromeda galaxy, which will help them to understand more about how our own Milky Way and other galaxies evolved. The University of Cambridge-led study involved researchers from the UK, US and Europe, and marks the first time that the "thick disc" in Andromeda, which contains old stars, has been identified.

San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) McCammon Lab UC San Diego University of Pavia, Italy National Institutes of Health Howard Hughes Medical Institute National Science Foundation UCSD-University of Pavia team say insights into the "packaging" of DNA could lead to new "epigenetic" drugs that block the spread of cancer cells February 08, 2011 By Warren Froelich Molecular Dynamics simulation shows that oxygen molecules reach the active site of Lysine Specific Demethylase 1 although substrate peptides (black, H3 histone tail & orange, SNAIL1 protein) are bound (Riccardo Baron et al.

UC San Diego biologists discovered how growth cones at the tips of growing nerves are guided to wire the developing brain. Credit: Yimin Zou, UCSD Neurobiologists at UC San Diego have discovered new ways by which nerves are guided to grow in highly directed ways to wire the brain during embryonic development.

Artificial turf is robust, durable and stands up to any weather. It allows to practise and to play all the year round and therefore became essential for today's football.

Dr Stephen Price (UCL Chemistry) is part of a UCL team that has developed a piece of experimental apparatus to study the chemistry of dications: molecules that have two positive charges. Recent studies of the layers at the top of the atmospheres of Earth, Mars, Venus and Titan have proposed that such doubly?charged molecules are present in significant numbers and that the chemistry of these energetic species affects the composition of these atmospheric regions.

The spinach-eating cartoon character Popeye has much to teach us, new research from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet shows. The muscles' cellular power plants - the mitochondria - are boosted by nitrate, a substance found in abundance in vegetables such as lettuce, spinach and beetroot.

A University of Manchester scientist has revealed the mechanism that binds skin cells tightly together, which he believes will lead to new treatments for painful and debilitating skin diseases and also lethal heart defects. Professor David Garrod, in the Faculty of Life Sciences, has found that the glue molecules bind only to similar glue molecules on other cells, making a very tough, resilient structure.