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Amazing Facts

Proteins Fold Who Knows How
July 9, 2010
One of the biggest mysteries remaining in cell biology is how proteins fold.  Proteins start out as chains of amino acids (polypeptides) as they exit the ribosome.  Most of them spontaneously fold into their “native” three-dimensional structures, where they will go to work as enzymes, structural materials or other key players in cell life.  About […]
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Amazing Facts

Your Inner Locomotive Revealed
July 6, 2010
Visualize an old locomotive train roaring down the tracks.  One of the characteristic images that surely comes to mind is the oscillating motion of the coupling rods on the wheels.  The long rods that connected the wheels provided a way to convert heat energy from the steam into mechanical energy (example video on YouTube).  It […]
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Amazing Facts

Farm Algae for Energy
June 29, 2010
June 29, 2010 — Why manufacture fuels when microbes can do it faster, better and cheaper?  Researchers at the University of Cambridge are wiring electrodes to algae to produce “green energy” – solar-powered fuel that is carbon-neutral, “cheaper to produce, self-repairing, self-replicating, biodegradable and much more sustainable – real green energy.”     The team […]
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Amazing Facts

The RNA Code: Pseudogenes Functional, Help Prevent Cancer
June 24, 2010
A surprising function has been discovered for a “pseudogene” – an apparently mutated copy of a regular gene that till recently was thought to be genetic junk.  This pseudogene, reported in Nature today,1 not only has a function unrelated to the production of proteins, but a function that could save your life.  It is part […]
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Amazing Facts

Butterfly Wing Shimmer Done With 3-D Crystals
June 15, 2010
Those shimmering flashes of light seen on butterfly wings are not done with pigments.  They’re done with tiny, geometric crystals called gyroids stacked in 3-D patterns, scientists have found.  They are so effective at concentrating color, the scientists want to imitate the trick.     “A precise characterization of color-producing biological nanostructures is critical to […]
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Amazing Facts

Flagellum Replaces Parts on the Fly
June 12, 2010
A new study appears to show that the bacterial flagellum, a molecular rotary motor that has become iconic of the intelligent design movement, can repair parts of its rotor while it is rotating.  The results of the study by Oxford University were published in PNAS,1 and were also the focus of a Commentary in PNAS […]
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Amazing Facts

Plants Have Memories
June 9, 2010
June 09, 2010 — Have you ever noticed how plants have an uncanny ability to know, without eyes or brains, when the time has come to bloom?  Even when spring comes early or late in some years, they sense the right time, and out come the flowers.  This is even more remarkable when you consider […]
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Amazing Facts

Your Nerves and Heart Depend on Cellular Pulleys, Latches and Switches
June 4, 2010
Biologists continue to peer closer and closer at cellular machines that work just like man-made ones, only at scales so tiny, they control individual atoms.  Of particular interest have been the gates in the membranes of cells that allow certain atoms in but keep others out.  A recent paper in Cell by an Australian team […]
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Amazing Facts

Venter’s Synthetic Plagiarism Deflated by NY Times
June 2, 2010
How significant was Craig Venter’s achievement of a so-called synthetic genome?  Somewhat significant, but it pales in significance to creating life from scratch.  It was only like “peering over a fortress that is the mighty cell,” wrote Natalie Angier for the New York Times Monday, May 31.     The article was accompanied with a […]
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Amazing Facts

Fooling Around with OOL
May 31, 2010
Origin of Life (OOL) research is one of those areas in science where one doesn’t have to make any real progress, as long as he or she looks busy.  Anything the scientist says, no matter how speculative, or even foolish, is likely to be taken seriously, because the alternative – creation – has already been […]
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Mt. St. Helens, Washington
Geology

Mt. St. Helens Recalls Overturned Paradigms
May 18, 2010
The eruption of Mt. St. Helens in May 1980 not only eroded mountains and canyons, it caused earthquake shifts in geological paradigms.
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Amazing Facts

Like Magic: Spiders Convert Fluid to Steel-Strong Silk
May 17, 2010
How do they do it?  Spiders spin their webs with such ease, but scientists know they are working a kind of material magic.  Inside the storage sac, the proteins act like a fluid.  Outside the spinnerets, that fluid turns into a structural rope that is stronger than steel, but elastic enough to absorb the energy […]
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Amazing Facts

World’s Strongest Animal Discovered
May 12, 2010
Scientists at the Technical University of Denmark announced the world’s strongest animal.  The strength of this animal is 10 to 30 times that of any other species.  Before revealing what it is, here are some additional hints: It is the most abundant multicellular animal on earth. It has the world’s strongest muscles, and outperforms man-made […]
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Amazing Facts

Bacteria: Let’s Harness Those “Perfect Machines”
May 11, 2010
Ten Italian scientists have a novel idea.  They want to hitch up their wagons to bacteria and use them to power nanomachines.  It’s too much work to build such “perfect machines” from scratch, they said.  Why not just take advantage of what nature has already provided?     Their paper in PNAS1 is downright dreamy […]
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Human Body

Can Darwin Be Rescued from a New Eye Discovery?
May 7, 2010
Scientists find waveguides and noise receptors built into the retina.
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