The mystery of protein folding: Nobel laureate summarizes his insights into the physical backgrounds
Living subjects are very complex systems and, at the same time, stunningly robust and accommodative. The secret of success are their proteins which build up the cells of the organisms, act as cleaners, messengers, ...
Aug 14, 2012
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Understanding the working mechanism of anesthetics
(Phys.org)—Spanish scientists at the University of the Basque Region and the University of La Rioja have combined mass-resolved electronic spectroscopy and ab initio calculations to model the interactions ...
Sep 27, 2012
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Nature's misfits: Reclassifying protists helps us understand how many species remain undiscovered
Since the Victorian era, categorizing the natural world has challenged scientists. No group has presented a challenge as tricky as the protists, the tiny, complex life forms that are neither plants nor animals. A new reclassification ...
Sep 27, 2012
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How flick knife thumbs help Japan's rare fighting frogs
Combat-ready spikes which shoot from fingers sounds like the weaponry of a comic book hero, but a Japanese scientist has found exactly this in a rare breed of frog. The discovery, which is published in the ...
Oct 18, 2012
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Did the changing climate shrink Europe's ancient hippos?
Giant German hippopotamuses wallowing on the banks of the Elbe are not a common sight. Yet 1.8 million years ago hippos were a prominent part of European wildlife, when mega-fauna such as woolly mammoths and giant cave bears ...
Oct 25, 2012
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Do Australia's giant fire-dependent trees belong in the rainforest?
Australia's giant eucalyptus trees are the tallest flowering plants on earth, yet their unique relationship with fire makes them a huge puzzle for ecologists. Now the first global assessment of these giants, published in ...
Oct 31, 2012
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High-speed video and artificial flowers shed light on mysteries of hummingbird-pollinated flowers
How flowers have evolved particular colours, shapes and scents to attract pollinators has long fascinated ecologists. Now, using artificial flowers and high-speed video, researchers have gained intriguing ...
Nov 20, 2012
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Fox invasion threatens wave of extinction, research finds
Using DNA detection techniques developed at the University, the team mapped the presence of foxes in Tasmania, predicted their spread and developed a model of their likely distribution as a blueprint for fox eradication, ...
Dec 04, 2012
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Was the sauropod dinosaurs' large size due to plant food? Scientists argue old idea still has legs
The long necked sauropod dinosaurs were the largest land animals ever to walk the Earth – but why were they so large? A decade ago a team of plant ecologists from South Africa suggested that this was due to the nature of ...
Dec 11, 2012
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Pics, shoots and leaves: Ecologists turn digital cameras into climate change tools
As digital cameras become better and cheaper, ecologists are turning these ubiquitous consumer devices into scientific tools to study how forests are responding to climate change. And, they say, digital cameras could be a ...
Dec 19, 2012
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Clogged pores for increased effectiveness: Whey protein stabilizes nanotransporter, controls pH-dependent drug release
(Phys.org)—How can pharmaceuticals be safely carried through the acidic environment of the stomach and into the intestines? A team of Canadian and Australian researchers has developed a novel nanotransporter ...
Jan 17, 2013
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Dying brightly: Fluorescence lights up cells programmed to die
Programmed cell death, or apoptosis, occurs tens of millions of times every day in every human body. Researchers in South Korea have devised an easy method to detect apoptotic cells by fluorescence, as they ...
Jan 25, 2013
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Light makes pores bigger: Photo-growth of pores in a polymer gel network
Sensible use of biomass: A chemical industry based on renew
(PhysOrg.com) -- Our industrialized world is largely dependent on fossil resources, whether for the generation of energy, as a fuel, or as a feedstock for the chemical industry. The environmental problems ...
Nov 14, 2011
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