Using tiny gold particles and infrared light, MIT researchers have developed a drug-delivery system that allows multiple drugs to be released in a controlled fashion.

Genes talk to themselves and to each other to control how a given cell manufactures proteins. But variation in the control of the same gene in two different tissues may contribute to certain human traits, including the likelihood of getting a disease, said a team of geneticists and neuroscientists.

A recent study using specimens from Chicago's Field Museum establishes that Nazca trophy heads came from people who lived in the same place and were part of the same culture as those who collected them.

Adults with diabetes experience a slowdown in several types of mental processing, which appears early in the disease and persists into old age, according to new research. Given the sharp rise in new cases of diabetes, this finding means that more adults may soon be living with mild but lasting deficits in their thought processes.

Remember the cool girls, huddled together in high school restrooms, puffing their cigarettes? Well, here's consolation for the nerds in the crowd: Those teen smokers are more likely to experience obesity as adults, according to a new study from Finland.

Researchers have discovered that grazing animals such as deer and rabbits are actually helping to spread plant disease -- quadrupling its prevalence in some cases -- and encouraging an invasion of annual grasses that threaten more than 20 million acres of native grasslands in California.

Adults with asthma are at increased risk of serious pneumococcal disease caused by Streptococcus pneumonia, the most common bacteria causing middle ear infections and community acquired pneumonia.

The center of the Milky Way presents astronomers with a paradox: It holds young stars, but no one is sure how those stars got there. The galactic center is wracked with powerful gravitational tides stirred by a 4 million solar-mass black hole. Those tides should rip apart molecular clouds that act as stellar nurseries, preventing stars from forming in place. Yet the alternative -- stars falling inward after forming elsewhere -- should be a rare occurrence.

Researchers have developed a new bra for older and disabled women which replaces traditional fastenings with magnets.

A new epidemiological study has found that among women who have never used menopausal hormone therapy, obese women are at an increased risk of developing ovarian cancer compared with women of normal weight.

Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon forests has flipped from a decreasing to an increasing trend, according to new annual figures recently released by the country's space agency INPE.

Organic compounds exhibit specific isotopic compositions that can be used as their "fingerprint". Environmental chemists nowadays exploit changes of isotopic compositions to identify the origin of organic pollutants and to assess their (bio)degradation in the environment by compound-specific stable isotope analysis.

Scientists have successfully pushed nature beyond its limits by genetically modifying Escherichia coli, a bacterium often associated with food poisoning, to produce unusually long-chain alcohols essential in the creation of biofuels.

A new study on 485 Iowa adolescents over a 10-year period (1991-2001) found that early socioeconomic adversity experienced by children contributes to poor mental health by the time they become teens -- disrupting their successful transition into adulthood.

Shredded extracellular matrix is toxic to neurons. Researchers reveal a new mechanism for how ECM demolition causes brain damage. The study suggests that drugs that block KA1, one subunit of the kainate receptor, might provide an alternative way to save brain cells after stroke or head trauma.

Physicists have developed a promising new way to identify a possible abnormality in a fundamental building block of Einstein's theory of relativity known as "Lorentz invariance." If confirmed, the abnormality would disprove the basic tenet that the laws of physics remain the same for any two objects traveling at a constant speed or rotated relative to one another.

A new coastal marine park has recently been signed into law by the Government of Argentina. The park protects half a million penguins along with several species of rare seabirds and the region's only population of South American fur seals. It is the first protected area in Argentina specifically designed to safeguard not only onshore breeding colonies but also areas of ocean where wildlife feed at sea.

Retroviruses are the worst sort of guest. Over eons, these molecular parasites have insinuated themselves into their hosts' DNA and caused a ruckus. The poor hosts can't even be rid of the intruders by killing them, because they stubbornly remain after death.

EMERGING YOUTH LEADERS PROJECT between the United States and ...
Dzeno Association, Czech Republic - 54 minutes ago
... and teachers from the Slovak Republic , Czech Republic and Hungary are invited to apply for participation in the Emerging Youth Leaders project. ...

Interest in organic crop production is increasing around the world. Organics are healthy for consumers while adding environmental benefits and decreasing the amount of synthetic herbicides in foods, soil, and water. While organics gain popularity with consumers, organic farmers are faced with new production challenges, especially managing and reducing invasive weeds.