Science News

Image Caption: BrightSource Energy’s smaller, flat mirrors are more efficient, simpler to manufacture, and cost less to install than parabolic mirrors used in solar troughs. Courtesy BrightSource Energy

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Eco-Friendly Conundrum Brews In California Desert

Research published in Political Research QuarterlyGenetics play a pivotal role in shaping how individual’s identify with political parties, according to an article in a recent issue of Political Research Quarterly, the official journal of the Western Political Science Association (published by SAGE).Political party identification (PID) is among the most studied concepts in modern political science.

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There May Be A ‘Party’ In Your Genes

Image Caption: In the current issue of Science, Stuart Lindsay, director of Arizona State University’s Center for Single Molecule Biophysics at the Biodesign Institute, along with his colleagues, demonstrates the potential of a new DNA sequencing method in which a single-stranded ribbon of DNA is threaded through a carbon nanotube. Credit: The Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University

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Carbon Nanotubes For Genetic Sequencing

US-German team measures how quickly genomes changeMutations are the raw material of evolution. Charles Darwin already recognized that evolution depends on heritable differences between individuals: those who are better adapted to the environment have better chances to pass on their genes to the next generation. A species can only evolve if the genome changes through new mutations, with the best new variants surviving the sieve of selection. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany, and Indiana University in Bloomington have now been able to measure for the first time directly the speed with which new mutations occur in plants. Their findings shed new light on a fundamental evolutionary process. They explain, for example, why resistance to herbicides can appear within just a few years. (Science, January 1, 2010)”While the long term effects of genome mutations are quite well understood, we did not know how often new mutations arise in the first place,” said Detlef Weigel, director at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. It is routine today to compare the genomes of related animal or plant species. Such comparisons, however, ignore mutations that have been lost in the millions of years since two species separated. The teams of Weigel and his colleague Michael Lynch at Indiana University therefore wanted to scrutinize the signature of evolution before selection occurs…

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Researchers Catch Evolution In The Act

DNA that is left in the remains of long-dead plants, animals, or humans allows a direct look into the history of evolution.

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Studying Ancient Humans Using Modern Sequencing Techniques

A government official said China will become the world’s third-largest producer of electricity from wind by the end of the year as it taps more renewable sources of energy and reduces the use of polluting coal.Shi Lishan, deputy director of new energy at the National Energy Administration, says the country’s windpower capacity will reach 20,000 megawatts this year.

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China To Become Third-Largest Windpower Producer

Washington DC residents will now be forced to pay a five-cent levy on each plastic bag issued at the checkout line, AFP reported.The tax, which starts today, is the first such initiative in the United States.It seeks to make consumers bear the brunt of clean up costs for the bags, which currently are dispensed for free with a customer’s purchases.The city says that plastic bags often end up clinging to tree branches, getting tangled in power lines, polluting rivers and clogging up storm drains.Mayor Adrian Fenty signed the law in July to cut down on the disposable bags that foul the waterways.

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Washington DC Residents To Pay For Plastic Shopping Bags

Researchers have new insight into the sex lives of the much-maligned mosquitoes that are responsible for the vast majority of malaria deaths, according to a report published online on December 31st in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.

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Mosquitoes Harmonize To Find A Mate

Researchers at MIT and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals report this week that they have successfully used RNA interference to turn off multiple genes in the livers of mice, an advance that could lead to new treatments for diseases of the liver and other organs.Since the 1998 discovery of RNA interference — the naturally occurring phenomenon in which the flow of genetic information from a cell’s nucleus to the protein-building machinery of the cell is disrupted — scientists have been pursuing the tantalizing ability to shut off any gene in the body.

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New RNA Interference Technique Can Silence Up To 5 Genes

Just like teenagers at a prom, proteins are tended by chaperones whose job it is to prevent unwanted interactions among immature clients.

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Molecular Chaperone Keeps Bacterial Proteins From Slow-Dancing To Destruction