Grow grass, not for fun but for fuel. Burning grass for energy has been a well-accepted technology in Europe for decades. But not in the United States.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's newest "library" is not the kind that will entice an average book lover, but it eventually will please thousands of plant scientists around the world. Through such researchers' work, it will undoubtedly contribute to improving crops that humans around the planet depend on every day, its developers say.

Researchers at the University of Toronto have mapped the molecular details that show how a viral protein coded in the Epstein-Barr virus immortalizes cells and causes them to continuously grow, thereby predisposing people to certain types of cancer.

A natural tumor suppressor that could potentially be turned on in certain cancer cells to prevent the formation of tumors has been discovered by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine.

Located on chromosome 18 and called PH domain Leucine-rich repeat Protein Phosphatase (PHLPP, pronounced "flip"), the tumor suppressor is described in the April 1, 2005 issue of the journal Molecular Cell. The scientists demonstrated that PHLPP deletes a phosphate molecule, causing termination of cell-growth signaling by a protein called Akt that controls the balance between cell growth leading to cancer and cell death that prevents tumor formation.

A new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Harvard School of Public Health finds that promoting cleaner, more efficient technologies for producing charcoal in Africa can save millions of lives and have significant climate change and development benefits.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the approval of Baraclude (entecavir) tablets and oral solution for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B in adults. Chronic hepatitis B is a serious disease caused by the hepatitis B virus (HBV) that attacks the liver. The virus can cause lifelong infection, cirrhosis (scarring) of the liver, liver cancer, liver failure, and death. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 1.25 million Americans are chronically infected with the HBV virus.

The emergence of new diseases, sudden changes in water quality, creation of coastal "dead zones," the collapse of fisheries and shifts in regional climate are just some of the potential consequences of humankind's degradation of the planet's ecosystems, according to a new United Nations-backed report launched today.

Physicists at the California Institute of Technology have created the first nanodevices capable of weighing individual biological molecules. This technology may lead to new forms of molecular identification that are cheaper and faster than existing methods, as well as revolutionary new instruments for proteomics.