Channel 42
Science is the answer to everything.

With the discovery of a new type of chemical modification on an important muscle protein, a University of Iowa study improves understanding of certain muscular dystrophies and could potentially lead to new treatments for the conditions.

More: continued here

Scientists from the Scripps Research Institute have determined for the first time that prions, bits of infectious protein devoid of DNA or RNA that can cause fatal neurodegenerative disease, are capable of Darwinian evolution.

More: continued here

In the current issue of Science, Stuart Lindsay, director of Arizona State University’s Center for Single Molecule Biophysics at the Biodesign Institute, along with his colleagues, demonstrates the potential of a new DNA sequencing method in which a single-stranded ribbon of DNA is threaded through a carbon nanotube.

More: continued here

Mutations are the raw material of evolution. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany, and Indiana University in Bloomington have now been able to measure for the first time directly the speed with which new mutations occur in plants. Their findings shed new light on a fundamental evolutionary process. They explain, for example, why resistance to herbicides can appear within just a few years.

More: continued here

Cells that protect nerves are the likely origin of the devil facial tumor disease that has been devastating Australia’s Tasmanian devil population, an international team of scientists has discovered.

More: continued here

An international team of scientists led by a Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory investigator has discovered that the deadly facial tumors decimating Australia’s Tasmanian devil population probably originated in Schwann cells, a type of tissue that cushions and protects nerve fibers. The findings, which open new avenues for research into treatments and vaccines for this disease, will appear in the journal Science on January 1.

More: continued here

DNA that is left in the remains of long-dead plants, animals or humans allows a direct look into the history of evolution.

More: continued here

Researchers have new insight into the sex lives of the much-maligned mosquitoes that are responsible for the vast majority of malaria deaths, according to a report published online on Dec. 31 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. In finding a partner of the right species type, male and female mosquitoes depend on their ability to “sing” in perfect harmony. Those tones are produced and varied based on the frequency of their wing beats in flight.

More: continued here

DNA that is left in the remains of long-dead plants, animals, or humans allows a direct look into the history of evolution. So far, studies of this kind on ancestral members of our own species have been hampered by scientists’ inability …

More: continued here