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Amazing Facts

A Second Code Controls the DNA Code
July 26, 2006
More has been discovered about the histone or nucleosome code (see 02/17/2004), a second genetic code independent of the DNA genetic sequence that directs the formation of proteins.  The New York Times (see also Science Daily) reported on work by scientists at Northwestern University who found that the wrapping of DNA around nucleosomes (made of […]
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Amazing Facts

Titan’s Land-o’-Lakes Found
July 24, 2006
The Cassini spacecraft has found features that look like methane lakes in the northern latitudes of Titan (see JPL press release).  The large dark patches, some about 30 miles across with rounded edges, appear to be associated with fluid channels.  Radar echoes cannot determine for sure whether the surface is liquid (dark means smooth, light […]
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Amazing Facts

Cell Untangles Its Own DNA
July 17, 2006
DNA is packed like spaghetti in a basketball (07/28/2004), but must constantly be accessed by transcribers, duplicators and other molecular machines.  Scientists at the Karolinska Institute, according to EurekAlert, have found a complex of protein machines that know how to untangle DNA.  Machines that can keep DNA from separating too early (cohesins) and keep DNA […]
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Amazing Facts

Eye Can See Clearly Now
July 17, 2006
The cornea has no blood vessels.  That’s weird.  But it’s a good thing, or we would be looking through a network of threadlike strands all the time.  According to EurekAlert, scientists at Scheppens Eye Institute decided to find out how the cornea stays clear.  They found that it is heavily stocked with a special protein, […]
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Amazing Facts

Saturn E-Ring Oxygen Bubble Blown by Enceladus
July 11, 2006
From a distance, the little moon Enceladus at Saturn looks for all the world like a leaking water balloon.  The Cassini Mission just released a new photo of Enceladus that fits that description well.  The plumes are faintly visible emanating from the south pole of the 300-mile-across moon as it orbits beyond the rings.  A […]
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Amazing Facts

Why Your Knuckles Pop
July 10, 2006
Science reporter Corey Binns occasionally decorates LiveScience with articles about the human body that are informational as well as amusing.  His latest is about cracking knuckles and creaking joints.  We have four kinds of joints (pivot, ball-and-socket, sliding and hinge), which he illustrates with diagrams that look like machinery.  The pops and creaking noises, he […]
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Amazing Facts

Plants Use Electrical Sunscreen
June 23, 2006
Perhaps only a scientist, or a kid, would worry about how a plant doesn’t get sunburn, but it took elaborate scientific work for six months to find the answer.  EurekAlert told about research at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State that found how plants get rid of excess solar energy.  They use carotenoids, molecules responsible […]
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Cell Biology

Rubisco “Highly Tuned” for Fixing Atmospheric Carbon
June 22, 2006
Rubisco sounds like a brand of cracker or something, but it’s actually an air cleaner your life depends on.  It’s an enzyme that fixes atmospheric carbon for use by photosynthetic microbes and plants.  In doing so, it sweeps the planet of excess carbon dioxide – the greenhouse gas implicated in discussions of global warming – […]
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Amazing Facts

Reach Out and Touch Some Robot
June 13, 2006
The news media were excited to report an advance in materials science last week that could pave the way for touchy-feely robots (see BBC News, News @ Nature, LiveScience and National Geographic News, for instance).  Two scientists produced a thin film with touch resolution comparable to that of a human finger, an order of magnitude […]
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Amazing Facts

Foot Facts: Frogs and Flies Fulfill Feet Feats
June 13, 2006
How do frogs walk on wet leaves without slipping?  Eric Jaffe in Science News1 describes how they have dual-purpose footwear: a mucous film that holds on by wet adhesion, plus microscopic bumps that protrude above the wet layer to make dry contact.  Though a frog foot doesn’t appear as fancy as that of a gecko, […]
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Amazing Facts

Plant Hula-Hoop Railroads Build Cell Walls
June 9, 2006
Solving a long-standing mystery about how plants build cell walls, Stanford scientists imaged molecular machines traveling along hoop-shaped rings around the inside of the cell.  Publishing in Science, Paradez, Somerville and Ehrhardt proved that cellulose synthase (CESA), a machine that manufactures cellulose composed of six subunits arranged in rosettes, rides like a rail car on […]
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Amazing Facts

Beavers Achieve Environmental Reprieve
June 8, 2006
In what might be considered an unexpected convergence between geology and zoology, it has been found that beaver dams influence large tracts of land both above and below ground.  “Impact of beaver dams wider than thought” announced a headline on LiveScience summarizing studies by scientists in Rocky Mountain National Park.     The dams take […]
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Amazing Facts

Protein Dressing Room Has Electronic Walls
June 7, 2006
Properly folded proteins are essential to all of life.  When a polypeptide, or chain of amino acids, emerges from the ribosome translation factory on its way to becoming a protein, it looks like a useless, shapeless piece of string.  It cannot perform its function till folded into a precise, compact shape particular for its job.  […]
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Amazing Facts

Hummingbirds: Small Wonders
June 5, 2006
Do you enjoy watching the world’s smallest birds, right from your backyard?  Susan Healy and T. Andrew Hurly provided interesting tidbits about them in a Quick Guide to Hummingbirds in Current Biology this week.1     There are 330 species of these small flyers noted for their aerobatics and iridescent colors.  Typically, they weigh a […]
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Amazing Facts

Q: Who Fights With Supercharged Harpoons?  A: Jellyfish
May 8, 2006
Weak, transparent, limp, and drifting in the water – who would have thought these creatures possess one of the most powerful weapons in the animal kingdom?  Jellyfish and hydras have stinging cells called nematocysts that fire so fast, no one has been able to catch the action of their microscopic harpoons – till now.   […]
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