Channel 42
Science is the answer to everything.

A Boston University-led research team has developed a nanoscale spin-torsion oscillator that can measure miniscule amounts of twisting or torque in a metallic nanowire. The device can be used to uncover spin-dependent fundamental forces in particle physics and have applications in spintronics, chemistry, biology and fundamental physics.

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By playing it safe and using a two-pronged attack, a novel designer molecule fights malignant melanoma. It was created and tested by an international team of researchers led by the University of Bonn. In Nature Medicine’s November issue they report about this promising strategy.

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Bacteria can directly cause human blood and plasma to clot — a process previously thought to have been lost during vertebrate evolution. The discovery may lead to new clinical methods for treating serious medical conditions such as sepsis and anthrax. The key to clot formation is the location of the bacteria, rather than the total number of bacteria or their concentration. Coagulation occurs only when a cluster of bacteria forms.

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Scientists have developed a genome-wide platform to study how specialized proteins regulate RNA in living, intact cells. The platform allows researchers to identify, in a single experiment, every sequence within every strand of RNA to which proteins bind. The result is an unbiased and unprecedented look at how differences in RNA can explain how a worm and a human can each have 25,000 genes yet be so different.

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A new study reveals an important and newly discovered pathway used by disease-causing bacteria to evade the host immune system and survive and grow within the very cells meant to destroy them. This discovery may lead to new treatments and vaccines for tuberculosis and certain other chronic bacterial and parasitic infections.

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Adding an artificial tumor-specific receptor to immune system cells called T-lymphocytes that target a particular virus extended and improved the cells’ ability to fight a form of childhood cancer called neuroblastoma, said researchers form Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital in a report that appears online today in the journal Nature Medicine.

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Broken hearts could one day be mended using a novel scaffold developed by MIT researchers and colleagues.

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Scientists have long known that it’s possible for one gene to produce slightly different forms of the same protein by skipping or including certain sequences from the messenger RNA. Now, an MIT team has shown that this phenomenon, known as alternative splicing, is both far more prevalent and varies more between tissues than was previously believed.

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tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books. “One cannot have too many good bird books” –Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927). The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report …

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I have reanalyzed the electoral map with the latest information. Applying some reasonable criteria (see below) to the most current information, a very reasonable conclusion is that the electoral vote not counting Pennsylvania will be …

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