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Bathed in dim morning light from a small window, the infant lies in a hospital bed at Kennedy Krieger Institute. Like a faint flame, a blood-colored birthmark engulfs the sleeping boy’s left eye and spreads up his pale forehead to lick his hairline.
An international team of researchers has taken a crucial step in mimicking the photosynthetic capabilities of plants, algae, and bacteria, raising the possibility of gathering energy from the Sun to create solar fuels (P Natl Acad Sci USA, 29 Jun 2009). The researchers modified algal chlorophyll to create a molecular structure similar to chlorosomes, the [...]
Researchers have uncovered a broad genetic diversity among members of a bacterial genus, using a cutting-edge “systems” approach that might one day help scientists choose the right microbe for environmental cleanups. Employing modern genomics and proteomics techniques, the researchers found that Shewanella, an adaptable genus of bacteria found both in the oceans and on land, [...]
A team of Johns Hopkins researchers has restored movement to paralyzed rats using a new method that they say shows the potential of embryonic stem cells to restore function to humans suffering from neurological disorders. “For the first time we have used stem cells to rewire part of the nervous system,” said Dr. Douglas Kerr, [...]
Scientists hope that someday stem cells will cure diseases. Pamela Joseph fears that cancer stem cells will kill her first. As her doctors explain it, stem cells are the source of multiple myeloma, a blood cancer the 56-year-old Clarksville woman has been fighting since 2005. Stem cells might also be the reason that the cancer [...]
The source of Beth Hoffman’s pain remains as elusive as the cure she so desperately seeks. The discomfort in her jaw started when she was 21, the year her wisdom teeth were removed and she gave birth to her first child. Now 29, she still suffers constant headaches and neck spasms. At night, her jaw [...]
Andrea Meredith’s mice have a terrible sense of timing. “It’s as if they can’t tell the difference between day and night,” said Meredith, a neuroscientist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Usually, rodents roam at night and sleep all day, even if kept in total darkness. But keep Meredith’s mice in the dark, [...]
Scientists hope that someday stem cells will cure diseases. Pamela Joseph fears that cancer stem cells will kill her first. As her doctors explain it, stem cells are the source of multiple myeloma, a blood cancer the 56-year-old Clarksville woman has been fighting since 2005. Stem cells might also be the reason that the cancer [...]
Parker Smith likes to sit in the rocking chair on his porch and watch rainstorms pass over the Carroll County valley his family has farmed, mostly undisturbed, for seven generations. What he dislikes are the repercussions of where the rain ends up. From 1998 until January of this year, Smith adamantly refused to participate in [...]
Mentos, soda geysers and the science of nucleation have captured Americans’ fancy this summer – if hundreds of goofy, homemade videos posted on the Web are any indication. The formula is simple: Plop a few Mentos candies into a two-liter bottle of soda and behold! A fountain of fizz shoots high into the air – [...]