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. (Phys.org) —DNA evidence is invisible and remarkably easy to transfer, making it possible for a sample to be spilled or even planted on a piece of evidence. http://phys.org/news286533216.html Biology Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:35:08 EST news286533216 "We live in the post-genomic era, when DNA sequence data is growing exponentially", says Miami University (Ohio) computational biologist Iddo Friedberg. "But for most of the genes that we identify, we have no idea of their biological functions. They are like words in a foreign language, waiting to be deciphered." Understanding the function of genes is a problem that has emerged at the forefront of molecular biology. Many groups develop and employ sophisticated algorithms to decipher these "words". However, until now there was no comprehensive picture of how well these methods perform, "To use the information in our genes to our advantage, we first need to take stock of how well we are doing in interpreting these data". http://phys.org/news283005128.html Biology Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:33:06 EST news283005128 Lightning fast and yet highly sensitive: HHblits is a new software tool for protein research which promises to significantly improve the functional analysis of proteins. A team of computational biologists led by Dr. Johannes Soding of LMU's Genzentrum has developed a new sequence search method to identify proteins with similar sequences in databases that is faster and can discover twice as many evolutionarily related proteins as previous methods. From the functional and structural properties of the identified proteins conclusions can then be drawn on the properties of the protein to be analysed. http://phys.org/news244013817.html Biology Sun, 25 Dec 2011 19:00:01 EST news244013817 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new approach that organizes previously unused mass spectra from proteomics studies gives scientists the ability to use these spectra to gain more information about proteins in a wide range of organisms. Scientists from the University of California-San Diego and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have created a vast spectral archive from more than a billion mass spectra acquired at PNNL between 2001 and 2009. They describe their approach in the July issue of Nature Methods. http://phys.org/news231670744.html Chemistry Thu, 04 Aug 2011 11:20:01 EST news231670744 A detailed comparison of DNA and RNA in human cells has uncovered a surprising number of cases where the corresponding sequences are not, as has long been assumed, identical. The RNA-DNA differences generate proteins that do not precisely match the genes that encode them. http://phys.org/news225032546.html Biology Thu, 19 May 2011 14:02:50 EST news225032546 (PhysOrg.com) -- Almost all information, in a sense, can be represented by symbols. In order to extract this embedded information, the symbols and the rules governing their sequence formation need to be deciphered. There are many examples of information residing in symbols, although the most familiar is probably written language. In addition to the sequences of letters that make up words, and sequences of words that make up sentences, there are lexical and grammatical rules that govern how letters and words can be combined, respectively, so that not all sequences of letters and words are possible. In a recent study, a group of scientists from Italy has developed a generic method to extract information from any type of symbolic sequential data, even when a "dictionary" of symbol sequences is not known beforehand. http://phys.org/news204800347.html Physics Mon, 27 Sep 2010 10:00:55 EST news204800347 Detailed, accurate evolutionary trees that reveal the relatedness of living things can now be determined much faster and for thousands of species with a computing method developed by computer scientists and a biologist at The University of Texas at Austin. http://phys.org/news164553586.html Biology Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:20:03 EST news164553586 Sometimes known as "nature's origami", the way that proteins fold is vital to ensuring they function correctly. But researchers at the University of Leeds have discovered this is a 'hit and miss' process, with proteins potentially folding wrongly many times before they form the correct structure for their intended purpose. http://phys.org/news155233369.html Biology Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:23:17 EST news155233369 Since the sequencing of the human genome eight years ago, enormous progress has been made in analyzing and understanding it. Nevertheless, the function of most human genes is still barely understood. An important first step in determining the function of a gene or protein is to compare its sequence with the sequences of hundreds of other organisms that are experimentally easier to investigate. From the functions of related genes or proteins identified in these database searches, the researchers can often infer the unknown functions of human or animal genes. http://phys.org/news154617817.html Biology Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:24:42 EST news154617817