http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Scientists at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), a part of the National Institutes of Health, have demonstrated that DNA previously thought to be "junk" plays a critical role in immune system response. The team's findings were published in Cell and may lead to the identification of new therapeutic targets for the treatment of immune-related disorders. http://phys.org/news274436610.html Biology Tue, 11 Dec 2012 08:23:55 EST news274436610 (Phys.org)—Scientists have discovered 100 million-year-old regions in the DNA of several plant species which could hold secrets about how specific genes are turned 'on' or 'off'. http://phys.org/news273918120.html Biology Wed, 05 Dec 2012 08:22:21 EST news273918120 Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have created more than 100 three-dimensional (3D) nanostructures using DNA building blocks that function like Lego® bricks—a major advance from the two-dimensional (2D) structures the same team built a few months ago. http://phys.org/news273420050.html Nanotechnology Thu, 29 Nov 2012 14:01:00 EST news273420050 Pop music megastar Lady Gaga is being honored with the name of a new genus of ferns found in Central and South America, Mexico, Arizona and Texas. A genus is a group of closely related species; in this case, 19 species of ferns will carry the name Gaga. http://phys.org/news270211711.html Biology Tue, 23 Oct 2012 11:48:46 EST news270211711 (PhysOrg.com) -- The human genome contains some 3 billion base pairs that are tightly compacted into the nucleus of each cell. If a DNA strand were the thickness of a human hair, the entire human genome would be crammed into a space the size of a softball, but if it were unraveled and all the strands lined up, they would stretch from Ithaca, N.Y., to Boston. http://phys.org/news245994804.html Biology Tue, 17 Jan 2012 03:53:42 EST news245994804 Researchers at RIKEN have uncovered a mechanism by which the effects of stress in the fly species Drosophila are inherited epigenetically over many generations through changes to the structure of chromatin, the material that makes up the cell nucleus. Published in the journal Cell, the results highlight the role of the transcription factor dATF-2 in chromatin assembly, marking a major advance in our understanding of non-Mendelian inheritance. http://phys.org/news228053836.html Biology Thu, 23 Jun 2011 13:17:31 EST news228053836 (PhysOrg.com) -- Nature might abhor a vacuum, but it loves a backup plan. In living organisms, physiological systems are kept under tight control by hierarchies of organic safety catches and emergency releases, helping to make sure that things run as smoothly as possible. http://phys.org/news163430546.html Chemistry Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:22:58 EST news163430546 A ghostly property of matter, called quantum tunneling, may aid the quest for accurate, low-cost genomic sequencing, according to a new paper in Nature Nanotechnology Letters by Stuart Lindsay and his collaborators at the Biodesign Institute of Arizona State University. Tunneling implies that a particle, say an electron, can cross a barrier, when, according to classical physics, it does not have enough energy to do so. http://phys.org/news156953933.html Nanotechnology Sun, 22 Mar 2009 15:43:19 EST news156953933