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A sudden withdrawal of support by the European Union for key scientific institutes could be a major setback for the continent's biological research and is yet another example of a lack of scientific vision at the European level.
South Africa's president surprised observers with a statement that the country would not supply AZT to HIV/AIDS sufferers until it could be established that the drug posed no health risk.
A number of major European research facilities in the life sciences are facing a major financial crisis crisis following a decision by the member states of the European Union.
Most major animal groups appear suddenly in the fossil record 550 million years ago, but vertebrates have been absent from this ‘Big Bang’ of life. Two fish-like animals from Early Cambrian rocks now fill this gap.
Careful experiments have revealed that the laws of nature (or at least elementary particles called kaons) can distinguish between past and future. Numerical calculations based on the Standard Model of particle physics now predict different results for such experiments. Is this a hint of physics beyond the Standard Model?
Ingenious computational comparisons involving complete genomic sequences have predicted many new functional links between proteins, without relying on homologies to characterized proteins. These new methods complement the large-scale experimental determination of protein function, and will ultimately contribute to complete and powerful models of biological pathways and assemblies.
During the 1990s evidence has emerged from seismic data that the Earth's inner core may be rotating slightly faster than the mantle and crust. Estimates of the rate have been as high as 3° per year. The conclusion of the latest study, however, is that there is no, or very little, differential rotation.
Proteins destined to act outside the confines of the cell need to be able to resist oxidizing processes that might unfold and destroy them. To do this they contain covalent (disulphide) bonds between cysteine residues. A huge step in understanding how these bonds are formed now comes with the first observation that protein disulphide isomerases form a direct link with partly made proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum.
The formation of the outer Milky Way is still something of a mystery. Evidence that a clump of stars discovered in the outer halo and the brightest globular cluster in the Milky Way are both remnants of satellite galaxies captured by our Galaxy, may provide an answer.
The control of complex cellular events relies on precise regulation of signalling molecules. The activity of many such proteins is controlled by adding a phosphate group to certain amino acids such as tyrosine, serine and threonine. A well-known motif -- the SH2 domain -- binds to phosphotyrosine residues. And a new family of proteins that bind phosphoserine and phosphothreonine is now emerging.
One area of business that has been untouched by microtechnology is the textile trade. Daedalus reckons they need a micro-loom to create silicon chain mail. Such chain mail would be amazingly tough and snag-resistant, yet soft and flexible at the same time.
