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Cracked Corn: Scientists Solve Maize's Genetic MazeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The complex corn genome--coming in at a hearty two billion base pairs (compared with the human genome's 2.9 billion base pairs)--has been mapped by more than 150 researchers, who worked for years to decipher the grain's genetic code . It's the most complicated plant genome to be deciphered to date and promises to increase the efficiency of the crop itself. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - November 19, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Environment,Society & Policy,Everyday Science,Basic Science,Evolution,Evolutionary Biology,Ecology,Biotechnology,Biotechnology,Energy Technology,Energy Technology Source Type: info

BioScapes Photo Contest: 15 Honorable MentionsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The entrants in the 2009 Olympus BioScapes International Digital Imaging Competition provide fitting tribute to nearly 1,000 years of making the invisible visible. These 15 photos were our staff favorites from the "Honorable Mentions" winners, listed in alphabetical order by photographer. > 15 Scientific American Staff Selected Honorable Mentions [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - November 18, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Technology,Basic Science,Science Education,Biotechnology,Biotechnology Source Type: info

Beyond the Still: 6 Bioscapes Contest VideosEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The entrants in the 2009 Olympus BioScapes International Digital Imaging Competition provide fitting tribute to nearly 1,000 years of making the invisible visible. These six videos include one winner and five Honorable Mentions. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - November 18, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Chemistry,Health & Medicine,Technology,Basic Science,Science Education,Biotechnology,Biotechnology Source Type: info

For Sale: Human Eggs Become a Research CommodityEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Paying a woman for her eggs to use in stem cell research has been a bioethical no-no for years. But this past June, New York State decided to allow just that, becoming the first state to permit public money to be used in this way. The decision, which allows payment of up to $10,000, will likely jump-start donations--and thereby research. Many bioethicists, however, worry that the financial incentive could exploit women and compromise their health.Ethical issues surround egg donation because the process is not without risk. It requires a series of hormonal stimulation injections as well as an invasive procedure to retrieve ...
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - November 17, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Health & Medicine,Health Medicine,Mind Brain,Technology,Society Policy,Evolutionary Biology,Biotechnology,Biotechnology,Ethics,Medical Technology Source Type: info

Growing Skyscrapers: The Rise of Vertical FarmsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Together the world’s 6.8 billion people use land equal in size to South America to grow food and raise livestock--an astounding agricultural footprint. And demographers predict the planet will host 9.5 billion people by 2050. Because each of us requires a minimum of 1,500 calories a day, civilization will have to cultivate another Brazil’s worth of land--2.1 billion acres--if farming continues to be practiced as it is today. That much new, arable earth simply does not exist. To quote the great American humorist Mark Twain: “Buy land. They’re not making it any more.”Agriculture also uses 70 per...
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - November 16, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Environment,Everyday Science,Energy & Sustainability,Climate,Green Living,Biotechnology,Biotechnology,Energy Technology,Energy Technology Source Type: info

Growing Skyscrapers: The Rise of Vertical Farms (preview)Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Together the world’s 6.8 billion people use land equal in size to South America to grow food and raise livestock--an astounding agricultural footprint. And demographers predict the planet will host 9.5 billion people by 2050. Because each of us requires a minimum of 1,500 calories a day, civilization will have to cultivate another Brazil’s worth of land--2.1 billion acres--if farming continues to be practiced as it is today. That much new, arable earth simply does not exist. To quote the great American humorist Mark Twain: “Buy land. They’re not making it any more.”Agriculture also uses 70 per...
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - November 16, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Environment,Everyday Science,Energy & Sustainability,Climate,Green Living,Biotechnology,Biotechnology,Energy Technology,Energy Technology Source Type: info

Squashing Malaria: Advances in Research and Prevention [Slide Show]Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Despite having been subdued in many parts of the world by the 1970s, malaria --and the mosquitoes that spread it--has come back in force, now killing at least a million people worldwide each year. An efficient illness, the parasite has become largely resistant to the popular drug chloroquine, and many mosquitoes have similarly developed resistance to the pesticide DDT. Most of its casualties are children, and of the hundreds of millions who survive the disease, many are left disabled and vulnerable to reinfection from the parasite's liver-dwelling cells. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - November 13, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Health & Medicine,Society Policy,Everyday Science,Biotechnology,Biotechnology,Infectious Diseases Source Type: info

New recipe looks back for how to feed the worldEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
When it comes to feeding Earth's masses of people who regularly go hungry, a few things are clear: communism's large-scale, collective farms don't work and breeding for specific traits in staple crops can boost yields, sometimes significantly. After all, two of the most significant agricultural successes of the past 50 years--a period marked by explosive population growth--were the redistribution of land in China to 160 million peasant families and the " Green Revolution " touched off by Norman Borlaug 's pioneering work with wheat. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - November 13, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Environment,Health & Medicine,History of Science,Society Policy,Science in Service,Energy Sustainability,Ecology,Biotechnology Source Type: info

MIND Reviews: Shaken: Journey into the Mind of a Parkinson's PatientEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
DVDs Shaken: Journey into the Mind of a Parkinson’s Patient [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - November 13, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Health & Medicine,Mind Brain,Basic Science,Language Linguistics,Language Linguistics,Neurological Disorders,Neuroscience,Thought Cognition,Biotechnology,Biotechnology,Medical Technology,Pharmaceuticals Source Type: info

Readers Respond on "Grassoline"Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Feed the World As a retired farmer, I know that the information in “Grassoline at the Pump,” by George W. Huber and Bruce E. Dale, about agricultural residues is false in a most dangerous way. There is NO extra residue from the corn harvest. Sure, you can take it away and use it to create fuel. But that residue is desperately needed right where it fell, to renew the soil. All of it and more are needed to sustain our already low organic matter levels created by years of plowing and other unsustainable agricultural practices. Soil can and does “die,” and then it is unable to produce food. Energy creat...
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - November 13, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Environment,Health & Medicine,Society Policy,Everyday Science,Energy Sustainability,Energy Sustainability,Alternative Energy Technology,Alternative Energy Technology,Clean Air Policy,Climate,Green Living,Psychology,Biotechnology,Biotechn Source Type: info

Calendar: MIND events in November and DecemberEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
NOVEMBER Dementia, you thief [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - November 13, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Health & Medicine,History of Science,Mind Brain,Society Policy,Everyday Science,Basic Science,Science Education,Language Linguistics,Language Linguistics,Addiction Recovery,Neurological Disorders,Neuroscience,Psychiatry,Psychology,Th Source Type: info

Penile erectile tissue grown in labEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Advances in tissue bioengineering have enabled lab-grown bladders, tracheas, cardiac patches and now penis parts. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - November 10, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Health & Medicine,Everyday Science,Biotechnology,Medical Technology Source Type: info

Breast Milk is Best for Newborns, but the Bottle Is Fine, TooEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Dear EarthTalk: What are the pros and cons of feeding babies formula versus breast milk? And if I purchase formula, should I spend the extra money on the organic variety? --Suzy W., via e-mail [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - November 6, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Health & Medicine,History of Science,Society Policy,Everyday Science,Basic Science,Biotechnology Source Type: info

Resuscitating Lungs For TransplantEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
[ The following is an exact transcript of this podcast. ]Emphysema and cystic fibrosis patients who need new lungs are faced with a life-threatening problem: more than 80 percent of donated lungs can’t be used--they’re inflamed and barely functional. But a new approach, detailed this week in the new journal Science Translational Medicine , describes a novel gene therapy that can repair these damaged lungs--and make them available for transplant. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - October 29, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Health & Medicine,Health Medicine,Biotechnology,Biotechnology,Medical Technology Source Type: info

Smart Set: Exploring Intelligence in the BrainEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
We’ve all seen the pretty pictures. Colored scans, produced by techniques that measure blood flow or the movement of a tracer chemical, reveal the activity of areas of the brain when we are thinking about something. The revolution in imaging in the past couple of decades has taught us a lot about what the brain is doing while we cogitate. One thing we’ve learned is that those more active areas aren’t always the same from brain to brain when considering a certain problem. Not all brains are the same size or shape, as you might expect, but they also think differently.So where does intelligence arise? Neuros...
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - October 29, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Health & Medicine,Mind Brain,Society Policy,Everyday Science,Science Education,Language Linguistics,Language Linguistics,Neurological Disorders,Neuroscience,Psychiatry,Psychology,Thought Cognition,Biotechnology,Biotechnology,Medical Source Type: info

Nerd a Vacation?: Travel with The Geek AtlasEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
After five years of gallivanting across the globe, Charles Darwin settled down at Down House in Downe, England. Other than day trips to London, he hardly left his neighborhood for the remaining 45 years of his life. After three days at a conference in London this past summer, I took a day trip to Downe to see Darwin’s house, which is now a small museum. What I did not know at the time was that I was visiting site number 043 in The Geek Atlas: 128 Places Where Science & Technology Come Alive (O’Reilly Media, 2009).Author John Graham-Cumming holds a doctorate in computer security and is described in the book ...
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - October 23, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Chemistry,Environment,History of Science,Society & Policy,Everyday Science,Basic Science,Science Education,Evolutionary Biology,Ecology,Thought Cognition,Biotechnology,Biotechnology,Medical Technology,Communications,Energy Technology,Energy Source Type: info

Can the world's richest man feed the planet?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Echoing luminaries before him--from Norman Borlaug to Kofi Annan --the world's richest man Bill Gates called last night for a second Green Revolution focused on African farmers. That revolution won't just be in new crop varieties and higher yields but also in farmer training and infrastructure--and, perhaps most controversially, will be genetically modified. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - October 16, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Environment,Health & Medicine,Society Policy,What ' s Next,Science in Service,Everyday Science,Energy Sustainability,Ecology,Green Living,Biotechnology Source Type: info

Impacts of Global Biofuel Boom Remain MurkyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A U.N. panel said today that biofuels' effects on air and water have not been sufficiently explored despite growing global production.The U.N. Environment Programme's report concludes that so-called lifecycle assessments must go beyond calculating greenhouse gas emissions and consider how agricultural production of feedstocks affect the acidification and nutrient loading of waterways. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - October 16, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Environment,Society & Policy,Energy Sustainability,Alternative Energy Technology,Alternative Energy Technology,Climate,Ecology,Biotechnology,Biotechnology,Automotive Technology,Energy Technology,Energy Technology Source Type: info

New Software Could Smooth Supercomputing Speed BumpsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Supercomputers have long been an indispensable, albeit expensive, tool for researchers who need to make sense of vast amounts of data. One way that researchers have begun to make high-speed computing more powerful and also more affordable is to build systems that split up workloads among fast, highly parallel graphics processing units (GPUs) and general-purpose central processing units (CPUs). [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - October 16, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Chemistry,Physics,Technology,Basic Science,Biotechnology,Biotechnology,Computing Source Type: info

Beating Heart Tissue from Stem CellsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
[ The following is an exact transcript of this podcast. ]One of the goals of regenerative medicine is to make tissue to replace our own damaged body parts. That’s still a ways off. But starting with mouse embryonic stem cells, researchers have succeeded in creating heart muscle that actually beats. The study appears in the October 16th issue of the journal Science . [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - October 15, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Health & Medicine,Health Medicine,Society Policy,Basic Science,Biotechnology,Biotechnology,Ethics,Medical Technology Source Type: info

Stem Cells from Fat Used to Grow Teen's Missing Facial BonesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Stem cells so far have been used to mend tissues ranging from damaged hearts to collapsed tracheas . Now the multifaceted cells have proved successful at regrowing bone in humans. In the first procedure of its kind, doctors at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center replaced a 14-year-old boy's missing cheekbones--in part by repurposing stem cells from his own body. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - October 15, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Health & Medicine,Biotechnology,Biotechnology Source Type: info

Pandemic Payoff from 1918: A Weaker H1N1 Flu TodayEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Editor's Note: This story is scheduled to appear in the November issue of Scientific American and is being published early due to recent news regarding the H1N1 vaccine. Although the swine flu outbreak of 2009 is still in full swing, this global influenza epidemic, the fourth in 100 years, is already teaching scientists valuable lessons about pandemics past, those that might have been and those that still might be. Evidence accumulated this summer indicates that the novel H1N1 swine flu virus was not entirely new to all human immune systems. Some researchers have even come to see the current outbreak as a flare-up in an on...
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - October 9, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Health & Medicine,History of Science,Society Policy,Biotechnology,Biotechnology,Infectious Diseases,Pharmaceuticals Source Type: info

Nobel Prize in PhysicsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
[ The following is an exact transcript of this podcast. ]The Nobel Prize in physics goes to Charles Kao, of Standard Communications Labs in England and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and George Smith and Willard Boyle of Bell Labs in New Jersey. Kao figured out how to transmit light over long distances in optical glass fibers. From the official announcement: “Today, more than a billion kilometers of optical fiber around the world forms the backbone of modern global communication.” [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - October 6, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: History of Science,Physics,Technology,Everyday Science,Space Exploration,Cosmology,Biotechnology,Biotechnology,Medical Technology,Communications,Consumer Electronics Source Type: info

Another Inconvenient Truth: The World's Growing Population Poses a Malthusian DilemmaEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
By 2050, the world will host nine billion people --and that's if population growth slows in much of the developing world. Today, at least one billion people are chronically malnourished or starving. Simply to maintain that sad state of affairs would require the clearing (read: deforestation) of 900 million additional hectares of land, according to Pedro Sanchez, director of the Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment Program at The Earth Institute at Columbia University. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - October 2, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Environment,History of Science,Society & Policy,Everyday Science,Energy Sustainability,Climate,Ecology,Green Living,Biotechnology Source Type: info

Could a microchip help to diagnose cancer in minutes?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Current cancer screening often requires painful procedures and weeks of waiting to obtain results. But what if doctors could read a biological sample with a small hand-held device and come back with an answer in less than an hour? [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - September 28, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Health & Medicine,Technology,What ' s Next,Biotechnology,Medical Technology Source Type: info

Stem cells bring new insights to future treatment of vision--and neural--disordersEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
BALTIMORE--Deep in the brain, buried in the hippocampus and subventricular zone, reside adult neural stem cells , cells that retain the ability to become other types of neural cells and could serve as possible treatments for ailments ranging from vision impairment to Parkinson's to spinal cord injuries. Doctors, scientists and patients, however, are understandably hesitant to go digging around for them, their location being "a great deterrent," Sally Temple , founder of the New York Neural Stem Cell Institute, said at the 2009 World Stem Cell Summit here on Wednesday. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - September 24, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Health,Mind & Brain,What ' s Next Source Type: info

Better Materials Could Build a Green Construction IndustryEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The construction industry consumes truckloads of basic materials, the manufacture of which consumes massive quantities of energy, producing prodigious emissions of greenhouse gases. If materials scientists and entrepreneurs can devise materials that can be fabricated with less energy, climate change could be slowed and many new manufacturing jobs could be created, fulfilling a much-anticipated promise of clean-tech innovation. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - September 21, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Environment,Society & Policy Source Type: info

Gene therapy: An Interview with an Unfortunate PioneerEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Philadelphia--Ten years ago this month the promise of using normal genes to cure hereditary defects crashed and burned, as Jesse Gelsinger, an 18-year-old from Tucson, Ariz., succumbed to multiorgan failure during a gene therapy trial at the University of Pennsylvania. Today the boardroom of the Translational Research Lab at the university is filled with artifacts reminiscent of the trial. Books such as Building Public Trust and Biosafety in the Laboratory sit on the shelves, and “IL-6” and “TNF-α” are scribbled on the whiteboard--abbreviations representing some of the very immune factors that...
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - September 16, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Health,Technology,Science in Service Source Type: info

Open-Access Flu Research Web Site Is Relaunched Amid ControversyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
A database designed to help researchers worldwide develop vaccines for avian and seasonal influenza viruses, not to mention the prolific H1N1 "swine flu," is now at the center of an ugly rift between its co-creators. Both the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID) Foundation that initiated the effort and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB) that built the actual influenza gene sequence "EpiFlu" database claim ownership of the project, thanks to legal and financial entanglements that the courts will now have to sort through. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - September 14, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Chemistry,Health,Technology,Society & Policy,What ' s Next,Science in Service,Everyday Science Source Type: info

Building a Better Flu Vaccine--And Giving Chickens a RestEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
As vaccine-makers gear up for the winter flu season, one biotech company is reporting success with an alternative method of developing a flu preventative that it says could work more effectively and be produced more quickly than traditional inoculations prepared in fertilized chicken eggs. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - September 2, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Health,Technology,Society & Policy,What ' s Next,Science in Service,Everyday Science Source Type: info

Blood Not So Simple: Controversial Hemoglobin Substitutes on Life SupportEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Efforts to develop blood substitutes that could be used to treat soldiers or trauma victims in remote settings have held great promise as a way to infuse oxygen-carrying liquids into patients, thereby saving their lives when real or safe blood is in short supply. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - August 28, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Chemistry,Health,Technology,Society & Policy,What ' s Next,Science in Service Source Type: info

MIND on Pain: Why People Experience Pain Differently (preview)Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
One day as a child Billy Smith (not his real name), a resident of Newfoundland, could not take off his shoe. No amount of twisting or tugging would loosen its grip on his foot. The reason for his struggle eventually surfaced: a nail had pierced the sole and entered Smith’s flesh, tightly binding the two. Removing the nail freed the foot, but solving that problem only underscored a bigger one: Smith had not noticed.Smith is among a tiny cluster of people, fewer than 30 in the world, who harbor a genetic quirk that renders them incapable of perceiving pain. “These humans are completely healthy, of normal intellig...
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - August 27, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Health,Mind & Brain,Everyday Science Source Type: info

Will watermelon rejects be the next biofuel?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Twenty percent of watermelons never make it to the picnic table. Rather, one in every five is left to ripen and rot in the field, rejected for even the slightest of cosmetic imperfections. But U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) researchers may have found a way to elevate these outcasts to an even higher calling than the summer BBQ: biofuel production. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - August 26, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Energy Source Type: info

Prickly Problem: Engineering Mosquitoes to Spread Less Disease without Boosting VirulenceEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Scientists around the world are currently hard at work genetically engineering new strains of mosquitoes that are poor hosts for diseases such as malaria , dengue and yellow fever, in the hopes of cutting down the spread of these germs. New research suggests, however, that although these insects might succeed in reducing the number of infections, they might also inadvertently boost the severity of remaining ones. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - August 21, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Environment,Health,Society & Policy,Science in Service Source Type: info

Gene Therapy Treatment for Blindness Proves Safe--and Effective--One Year InEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Gene therapy has been rhapsodized and vilified in its nearly two decades of human testing, helping some and making others sicker. But a new 12-month clinical trial has shown that, at least in one ocular disease, it appears safe and--perhaps even more impressive--effective. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - August 14, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Health,Mind & Brain,Society Policy Source Type: info

Rare Genetic Mutation Lets Some People Function with Less SleepEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
For something so essential and basic, sleep has turned out to be a complicated biological nightmare for scientists. Certain genes, such as CLOCK and BMAL1 , have been pegged for their roles in the body's circadian rhythm, but the full cast of characters involved in moderating the process of sleep remains fuzzy. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - August 13, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Health,Mind & Brain,Everyday Science Source Type: info

Do Seed Companies Control GM Crop Research?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Advances in agricultural technology--including, but not limited to, the genetic modification of food crops--have made fields more productive than ever. Farmers grow more crops and feed more people using less land. They are able to use fewer pesticides and to reduce the amount of tilling that leads to erosion. And within the next two years, agritech companies plan to introduce advanced crops that are designed to survive heat waves and droughts, resilient characteristics that will become increasingly important in a world marked by a changing climate.Unfortunately, it is impossible to verify that genetically modified cro...
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - August 13, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Environment,Technology,Society & Policy,Everyday Science Source Type: info

A Biochemical Way to Reduce Drug Side Effects? (preview)Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Despite what the overcrowded, overpriced shelves of your pharmacy might suggest, pharmaceutical companies struggle to find new drugs these days. The low-hanging fruit is long gone, and the main discovery method that served so well in past decades is generating far fewer hits today. But a fresh strategy, focused on a property called allosterism, is now invigorating many investigators. Some predict it will revolutionize drug discovery and could deliver treatments for diseases that so far remain intractable.Historically, scientists have developed drugs by finding molecules that mimic the behavior of our body's signaling molec...
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - August 10, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Chemistry,Health,Technology,What ' s Next,Science in Service Source Type: info

The Gene Hunt: Should Finders Be Keepers?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Defendants in a high-profile lawsuit that could have significant implications for thousands of patents on human genes have now asked a federal judge to dismiss the case, calling it a "thinly veiled attempt to challenge the validity of patents." [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - July 29, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Health,Society & Policy Source Type: info

Insect is Turning Florida's Oranges GreenEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Slowly but surely, Florida's oranges are going sour.Since its discovery in 2005, a grave disorder known as huanglongbing (HLB), or citrus greening disease, has ravaged the Florida citrus industry. Borne by the Asian citrus psyllid, a small, invasive insect related to the aphid, HLB has spread to every county in the state, causing the citrus trees it infects to sprout misshapen, sour fruit. Once a tree is infected, there is no cure. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - July 28, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Environment Source Type: info

Cloned dogs sniff out contraband in South KoreaEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Six cloned Labrador retrievers are now using their olfactory prowess to help officials find drugs and explosives at airports and harbors across South Korea. The dogs--which all share the name “Toppy,” a combination of “tomorrow” and “puppy”--became the world’s first working cloned sniffer dogs when they reported for duty last Thursday, according to BBC News. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - July 20, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Society & Policy,Science in Service Source Type: info

Agriculture's Sustainable Future: Breeding Better CropsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
We are not going back to the pleistocene age of the hunter-gatherers. Instead experts indicate that the world’s population will increase from approximately six billion to nine billion by 2050--all to be fed, clothed and even fueled by agricultural products. What’s more, as people rise out of poverty, higher living standards such as greater meat consumption and personal mobility will place even more demand on food crop production (wheat, rice), animal feed (corn, soybeans), fiber (wood, cotton) and fuels (sugarcane, switchgrass). How can agriculture’s output expand so dramatically without significantly inc...
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - July 15, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Environment,Technology,Energy,What ' s Next,Science in Service,Everyday Science Source Type: info

Clean dreams or pond scum? ExxonMobil and Craig Venter team up in quest for algae-based biofuelsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In a bid to take the lead in algae-based biofuels , ExxonMobil will plow $600 million into genome guru Craig Venter's company Synthetic Genomics and plans to construct a pilot facility in San Diego. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - July 14, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Environment,Technology,Energy Source Type: info

ExxonMobil Bets $600 Million on AlgaeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. is making a major jump into renewable energy with a $600 million investment in algae-based biofuels . [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - July 14, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Environment,Energy Source Type: info

Squashing Superbugs--The Race for New Antibiotics (preview)Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
“Superbug Strikes in City” sounds like a horror movie title, but instead it is a headline printed in the October 26, 2007, edition of the New York Post . Twelve days earlier a 12-year-old Brooklyn boy, Omar Rivera, died after a wound he received on the basketball court became infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a bacterium that has become resistant to one of the most potent drug classes in the current antibiotic arsenal.The prospect of healthy people contracting an untreatable bacterial infection may have seemed remote a decade ago, but it has now become a reality. In 2007 a resear...
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - July 13, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Chemistry,Health,Mind & Brain,Technology,Society Policy,What ' s Next,Science in Service Source Type: info

Roses are blue--At least recently approved genetically engineered versions areEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In a popular Chinese folktale, a blue rose is the ticket to marry the princess. Naturally, her vying suitors struggle; a rose simply doesn’t grow that color. In the end, the princess marries the gardener’s son who offers a beautiful white rose--because it appears blue through a stained glass window. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - July 7, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,What ' s Next Source Type: info

The Wonderful World of Transgenic AnimalsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
[ Below is the original script. But a few changes may have been made during the recording of this audio podcast. ]Since Dolly the sheep was cloned back in July of 1996, the world of manipulating animal DNA has come a long way. In Massachusetts, goats now produce milk with drugs embedded . There are monkeys whose DNA glows green to enable scientific study. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - July 2, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Environment,Space,Technology,Society & Policy,What ' s Next,Science in Service,Everyday Science,Basic Science,Evolution,Energy Sustainability,Biotechnology Source Type: info

Cutting Cow Flatulence with Garlic?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Methane gas released as flatulence from livestock is a significant source of greenhouse gas, but entrepreneurs may have found a ready antidote to the problem: garlic. Mootral (“moo” and “neutral”), produced by Neem Biotech in Cardiff, Wales, contains a natural garlic extract--allicin--that when fed to cows and sheep limits the growth of certain methane-producing bacteria in the animals’ digestive systems. In two small trials, methane output in cows and sheep was reduced by 15 percent. David Williams, chair and CEO, expects further research will allow output to be cut in half; simulations using...
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - June 23, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Chemistry,Environment,Everyday Science Source Type: info

Researchers Look for Ways to Deliver a One-Two Punch to Flu VirusesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The spread of a new strain of influenza A H1N1 virus across 50 countries worldwide since last month has helped remind the medical community that it needs to adapt to a virus that continuously reinvents itself. [More] (Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology)
Source: Scientific American Topic - Biotechnology - June 2, 2009 Category: Biotechnology Tags: Biology,Health,What ' s Next Source Type: info