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Chemists at Vanderbilt University have created a new class of liquid crystals with unique electrical properties that could improve the performance of digital displays used on everything from digital watches to flat panel televisions.

After a decade of joint work involving 2,700 researchers from 80 countries, the world's scientists – as well as the general public – can now access the Census of Marine Life, which provides the first in-depth look at the more than 120,000 diverse species which inhabit our oceans.

The Census of Marine Life initiative, started in 2000, is the result of one of the largest scientific collaborations ever conducted , the result of more than 540 expeditions and 9,000 days at sea, plus more than 2,600 academic papers published during that period.

Evidence reported in the October issue of Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication, offers a completely new explanation for why people with diabetes account for more than half of all patients requiring dialysis or kidney transplantation. It appears that insulin has a significant influence on the structure and proper function of a particular group of very specialized cells, known as podocytes, that are integral to the kidney's ability to do its job filtering blood.

When mice are given drinking water laced with a special concoction of amino acids, they live longer than your average mouse, according to a new report in the October issue of Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication. The key ingredients in the supplemental mixture are so-called branched-chain amino acids, which account for 3 of the 20 amino acids (specifically leucine, isoleucine, and valine) that are the building blocks of proteins.

Diabetes is the leading reason for kidney failure in the world, resulting in patients requiring dialysis or kidney transplantation. New research has found a cell in the kidney called the podocyte could be the key to understanding why this happens.

The study led by Dr Richard Coward, in the School of Clinical Sciences at the University of Bristol, is published in Cell Metabolism and funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC).

Under the Water Framework Directive (WFD) (Directive 2000/60/CE), member states are required to achieve Good Water Status for water (continental, estuarine, subterranean and coastal water bodies) in Europe by 2015. Surface water quality is assessed taking into account the ecological and chemical status.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Wind power is likely to play a large role in the future of sustainable, clean energy, but wide-scale adoption has remained elusive. Now, researchers have found wind farms' effects on local temperatures and proposed strategies for mediating those effects, increasing the potential to expand wind farms to a utility-scale energy resource.

ST. LOUIS – Thanks to a discovery by a Saint Louis University researcher, scientists have identified an important microRNA that may allow us to better control cholesterol levels in blood.

Led by Ángel Baldán, Ph.D., assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Saint Louis University and published in a recent issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, the study found that the microRNA miR-33, may be key to controlling HDL, or "good" cholesterol levels.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – The most toxic free radical appears responsible for much of the lung damage that can result from oxygen therapy in the critically ill or injured, Medical College of Georgia researchers report.

Washington, D.C. (October 5, 2010) -- Protein molecules inside cells are constantly reorganizing themselves, driven by very tiny forces exerted by all the other molecules in their crowded environment. Most experimental techniques and theoretical/computational models are necessarily built around much greater driving forces. A new theoretical model reported in the Journal of Chemical Physics investigates the unfolding of fibronectin under gentler conditions.

Science’s annual survey of Top Employers polls employees in the biotechnology, biopharmaceutical, pharmaceutical, and related industries to determine the driving characteristics of the best employers and to determine the 20 best employers in these industries. Respondents to the web-based survey were asked to rate companies based on 23 characteristics, including financial strength, easy adaptation to change, and a research-driven environment.

Allergies occur when the defence mechanisms of the immune system malfunction and misread normal substances entering the body as invading pathogens. Antibodies are part of our biochemical arsenal for combating viruses, bacteria, parasites and other alien substances, but during an allergic reaction the antibody, known as IgE, is directed against usually harmless substances such as grass pollen, nuts, pets or eggs. Asthma and allergies are chronic diseases that reduce quality of life and pose an economic burden on society.

Therapeutic antibodies can be an efficient alternative when common drugs do not work anymore. However, antibodies obtained from blood of animals such as mice could not be used: The human immune system recognizes them as foreign and rejects them. In an international cooperation, scientists from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig, Germany have now succeeded in developing a promising approach to solve this problem; with the help of human stem cells they generated mice with a human immune system, which were then vaccinated to produce human monoclonal antibodies.

A study by two Florida State University biochemists makes an important contribution to science's understanding of a serious problem causing concern worldwide: the growing resistance of some harmful bacteria to the drugs that were intended to kill them.