17.01.2008
Risky DNA: Autism studies yield fresh genetic leads
One finds that spontaneous alterations to a tiny stretch of chromosome 16 contribute to about 1 percent of childhood autism cases. Either a deletion or a duplication of this DNA section raises a child's susceptibility to autism and related disorders, report geneticist Mark J. Daly of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and his colleagues...  more >>>

17.01.2008
Life from Scratch
The only time life arose from nonlife, biologists believe, was almost 4 billion years ago, when simple living cells first appeared on Earth. But now, with the help of a microscopic parasite that infects people's genitals, researchers may rehabilitate the core of Aristotle's idea...  more >>>

17.01.2008
Hued Afterglow: Fingerprinting diamonds via phosphorescence
Phosphorescence, a "glow-in-the-dark" process in which energy previously absorbed by a substance is released slowly in the form of light, is common in a certain type of blue diamond. After exposure to light, these type IIb diamonds, which have boron- and nitrogen-containing impurities, softly glow in colors ranging from blue through pink to fiery red, says Sally Eaton-Magaña, a chemical engineer at the Gemological Institute of America in Carlsbad, Calif. The orange-red glow from the 45.52-carat Hope Diamond, a type IIb gemstone on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., is visible for as long as a minute after the lights go out...  more >>>

19.11.2007
Shadow World
In a school of thought that teaches the existence of extra dimensions, Juan Maldacena may at first sound a little out of place. String theory is physicists' still-tentative strategy for reconciling Einstein's theory of gravitation with quantum physics. Its premise is that the subatomic particles that roam our three-dimensional world are really infinitesimally thin strings vibrating in nine dimensions. According to Maldacena, however, the key to understanding string theory is not to add more dimensions but to cut their number down...  more >>>

19.11.2007
Superbug: What makes one bacterium so deadly
Some of the most aggressive antibiotic-resistant staph infections gain their advantage with a molecule that punctures the immune cells trying to fight off the bacteria, scientists have discovered. Understanding the role of this molecule in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) could lead to new therapies for the notoriously hard-to-treat, and sometimes fatal, skin infection...  more >>>