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The processes behind neuronal communication have not yet been resolved in detail, but dyes, microscopy and protein analysis are beginning to fill in the gaps.
When healthy parents have a child with a genetic disorder, the cause is sometimes a new mutation. Tools are emerging to meet the challenge of finding such changes.
Bacteria can coat everything from thermal springs to teeth. Researchers are looking for antibiotics that can subvert the signalling that the microbes use to carve their niche.
The first draft of the complete human proteome has been more than a decade in the making. In the process, the effort has also delivered lessons about technology and biology.
Beams of charged particles can treat cancer more safely and effectively than X-rays. Physicists and biomedical researchers are working to refine the technology for wider use.
Instruments for studying microbes under biological containment cannot be readily removed from labs for servicing. A US facility is finding ways around that problem.
