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Using a beam of light shunted through a tiny silicon channel, researchers have created a nanoscale trap that can stop free floating DNA molecules and nanoparticles in their tracks. By holding the nanoscale material steady while the fluid around it flows freely, the trap may allow researchers to boost the accuracy of biological sensors and create a range of new 'lab on a chip' diagnostic tools.

Scientists have new information about the complex genetic signature associated with Alzheimer's disease, the leading cause of cognitive decline and dementia in the elderly. The research uses a powerful, high-resolution analysis to look for genes associated with this devastating neurodegenerative disorder.

Malarial parasites found in tree-dwelling African thicket rats share a close evolutionary relationship with Plasmodium falciparum and P. reichenowi. The analysis is based on amplification of entire mitochondrial genomes of malarial parasites that use humans, rodents, birds and lizards as their hosts.

While examining patterns of DNA modification in lung cancer, scientists have discovered what they say is a surprising new mechanism. They say that "silencing" of a single gene in lung cancer led to a general impairment in genome-wide changes in cells, contributing to cancer development and progression.

Since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; about 21,000 years ago) sea level has risen by 130 meters (430 feet), resulting in continental shelf submergence and a massive expansion of the surface area of shelf seas.

Everybody is familiar with the stereotypes of medical education from the student perspective: grueling hours, little recognition, and even less glory. A new study pulls back the curtain on the dominant environment of academic medicine from the perspective of faculty, the providers of medical education in medical schools. The study raises questions about how the prevailing culture of academic medicine shapes the delivery of health care.

Engineers have developed a new, highly efficient way to pair up cells so they can be fused together into a hybrid cell. The new technique should make it much easier for scientists to study what happens when two cells are combined. For example, fusing an adult cell and an embryonic stem cell allows researchers to study the genetic reprogramming that occurs in such hybrids.

Micro-organisms in the intestine live in symbiosis with humans but can cause illness or even death. Scientists have researched the factors that make a person immune to worm infections. The knowledge can now be used to develop vaccines.

Scientists have identified a protein produced by cancerous lung epithelial cells that enhances metastasis by stimulating the activity of inflammatory cells.

The emerging field of nutrigenomics aims to identify the genetic factors that influence the body's response to diet and studies how the bioactive constituents of food affect gene expression.

Scientists have identified a variation in a particular gene that increases susceptibility to early coronary artery disease. For years, scientists have known that the devastating, early-onset form of the disease was inherited, but they knew little about the gene(s) responsible until now.

Scientists found that irradiation damages fat tissue. Radiation therapy directed at cancer management also damages normal tissues. Autologous transplant of tissues such as fat tissue has often been used to prevent the fibrosis, organ dysfunction, and necrosis that result from radiation treatment; however, the effects of radiation on the transplanted fat tissue had not been studied.

The reproductive spores of many species of fungi have evolved remarkably drag-minimizing shapes, according to new research by mycologists and applied mathematicians at Harvard University. In many cases, the scientists report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the drag experienced by these fungal spores is within one percent of the absolute minimum possible drag for their size.

Sinalbin, the same compound that gives white mustard its pungent flavor, could also prove useful in fighting weeds.

A network of emotion-regulating brain regions implicated in the pathological worry that can grip patients with anxiety disorders may also be useful for predicting the benefits of treatment.

Administering antibiotics as a preventive measure to patients in intensive care units increases their chances of survival. This has emerged from a study involving nearly six thousand Dutch patients in thirteen hospitals.

New computer visualization technology developed by the Harvard Initiative in Innovative Computing has helped astrophysicists understand that gravity plays a larger role than previously thought in deep space's vast, star-forming molecular clouds.

Scientists have explored the expression of an immune molecule (CXCL1) that interacts with myelin-producing cells, finding that CXCL1 decreases the severity of disease in a mouse model of multiple sclerosis (MS).

Entirely new protein structures are very rarely found to drive known biochemical processes. But molecular biologists have just succeeded in finding an example. They studied the protein ASST, present in pathogenic E. coli bacteria, which cause urinary tract infections. In addition to an entirely new structure, the researchers found a transfer mechanism similar to ping-pong, whereby the "ball" is held a previously unknown manner.

Women who took beta carotene or vitamin C or E or a combination of the supplements had a similar risk of cancer as women who did not take the supplements, according to data from a randomized controlled trial.