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Science is the answer to everything.

This month’s issue of “Cold Spring Harbor Protocols” introduces a new series of articles about the latest generation of model organisms.

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Purdue University researchers have developed a method of using nanoparticles to deliver treatments to injured brain and spinal cord cells. A team led by Richard Borgens coated silica nanoparticles with a polymer to target and repair injured guinea pig spinal cords. The team then used the coated nanoparticles to deliver both the polymer and hydralazine to cells with secondary damage from a naturally produced toxin.

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An acupressure treatment applied to children undergoing anesthesia noticeably lowers their anxiety levels and makes the stress of surgery more calming for them and their families, UC Irvine anesthesiologists have learned.

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Birds of a feather flock together, according to the old adage, and adolescent males who possess a certain type of variation in a specific gene are more likely to flock to delinquent peers, according to a landmark study led by Florida State University criminologist Kevin M. Beaver.

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New structural details of plant viruses responsible for more than half the viral damage to crop plants throughout the world have been revealed by scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborating institutions. These findings, published in the Oct. 1, 2008, issue of the Journal of Virology, may lead to new ways to protect crop plants, and may also benefit scientists interested in using viruses as agents of biotechnology to coax plants to produce other useful products, such as pharmaceuticals.

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After improving the sensitivity of nuclear magnetic resonance, researchers at the University of Missouri actually watched the HIV-1 protease mature from an inactive form into an active infection. This process has never been directly visualized before. The findings appear today in the journal Nature.

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More than 20 years later, researchers from Case Western Reserve University traveled to Sweden and Poland to gain insight into the downward migration of Chernobyl-derived radionuclides in the soil. Among the team’s findings was the fact that much more plutonium was found in the Swedish soil at a depth that corresponded with the nuclear explosion than that of Poland.

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Recent study results have shown have shown that using nitrogen fertilizer on off-season cover crops can not only increase the biomass of these crops, but can also have a beneficial effect on the nitrogen levels in the soil for the cash crop planted during the summer season. The results could significantly aid in preventing soil erosion in vulnerable agricultural regions.

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Sediment in rivers comes from erosion of the landscape as well as the erosion and collapse of the banks themselves. Just how much each source contributes to a river — and how it affects the flow and path of that river — is the subject of research by Peter Whiting, professor of geological sciences at Case Western Reserve University.

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“Even if individuals cannot agree on who they are, they often agree on who or what they are not,” a new study explains. “Simply reminding people of what they are not can transform attitudes towards different groups, shift loyalties, and political preferences, and thus drive coalition building.”

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