North Carolina State University researchers have created specially engineered mammalian cells to provide a new "chemical handle" which will enable researchers to label proteins of interest more efficiently, without disrupting the normal function of the proteins themselves or the cells in which they are found.

For the first time, a group of chemists, physicists, and engineers has developed crystalline materials that allow an optical fiber to have integrated, high-speed electronic functions. The potential applications of such optical fibers include improved telecommunications and other hybrid optical and electronic technologies, improved laser technology, and more-accurate remote-sensing devices. The res

A painstakingly detailed investigation shows that mass extinctions need not be sudden events. The deadliest mass extinction of all took a long time to kill 90 percent of Earth's marine life, and it killed in stages, according to a newly published report.

A team of Spanish researchers have used different geological samples, extracted from the Enol lake in Asturias, to show that the Holocene, a period that started 11,600 years ago, did not have a climate as stable as was believed. The Holocene period, which includes the last 11,600 years of our history, has always been described as a stable period in terms of climatic conditions, especially whe

The world can deliver sudden and nasty shocks. Economies can crash, fisheries can collapse, and climates can pass tipping points. Providing early warning of such changes currently requires the collection of enormous and often prohibitive amounts of data. A new method developed by Steven Lade from the Max-Planck-Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Germany and Thilo Gross from the Univer

Using some of the most powerful nuclear magnetic resonance equipment available, researchers at the University of California, Davis, are making discoveries about the shape and structure of biological molecules -- potentially leading to new ways to treat or prevent diseases such as breast cancer and Alzheimer's disease.

A photograph of a polar bear in captivity, no matter how sharp the resolution, can never reveal as much about behavior as footage of that polar bear in its natural habitat. The behavior of cells and molecules can prove even more elusive. Limitations in biomedical imaging technologies have hampered attempts to understand cellular and molecular behavior, with biologists trying to envision dynamic pr

Physicists at JILA have created the first "frequency comb" in the extreme ultraviolet band of the spectrum, high-energy light less than 100 nanometers (nm) in wavelength. Laser-generated frequency combs are the most accurate method available for precisely measuring frequencies, or colors, of light. In reaching the new band of the spectrum, the JILA experiments demonstrated for the

While researchers have long known of the incredible strength of spider silk, the robust nature of the tiny filaments cannot alone explain how webs survive multiple tears and winds that exceed hurricane strength.

World fuel consumption is shifting more and more to diesel at the expense of gasoline. A recently published article in Nature Chemistry by a research team at Stockholm University and the Polytechnic University of Valencia in Spain presents a new porous material that evinces unique properties for converting gasoline directly into diesel. The material has a tremendously complex atomic structu