Elegance SilverPenn State researchers have discovered an extraordinary new flower that lives longer than an ordinary one. Named Elegance Silver by the researchers, the plant could be the Superman of the flower world.

Elegance Silver is a Regal Pelargonium, a very beautiful flower that is used as a flowering houseplant, and belongs to the genus Pelargonium, the same genus as geraniums. It has a glistening white flower with two burgundy feathers on the top two petals. In terms of flower shape and size, Elegance Silver resembles geraniums. The major differences are the palette of flower colors, symmetry of petals and the highly serrated leaves of the regal.

Molecular motors are nanoscale engines which move along very thin rod-like filaments and, in this way, drive the heavy traffic of molecular cargo within biological cells. Both motors and filaments can be isolated from the cells and used to construct biomimetic transport systems. In order to increase the flux of the cargo transport, it would be necessary to increase the number of motors that contribute to this transport but, at the same time, avoid the build-up of traffic jams. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam and from the University of Amsterdam have now modelled and simulated the motor traffic for different compartment geometries and filament arrangements, and have determined the optimal conditions for the transport of nanocargo in these systems (Biophysical Journal, 88, 3118-3132, May 2005).

The healthy cell shows very few mitochondria near the outer cell wall; they cluster densely (red coloration) as they approach the cell's nucleous (depicted here as the black central hole). In the cancerous cell, the mitochondria are spread throughout the cell, do not cluster, and under the same lighting produce a more subdued effect. (Photo courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories)To investigate tumors, pathologists currently rely on labor-intensive microscopic examination, using century-old cell-staining methods that can take days to complete and may give false readings.

A lightning-fast laser technique, led by Sandia National Laboratories researcher Paul Gourley, has provided laboratory demonstrations of accurate, real-time, high-throughput identification of liver tumor cells at their earliest stages, and without invasive chemical reagents.

The technique generates a laser beam in single human cells pumped from a flask through tiny microchannels. The beam is altered by what it encounters. These changes, registered by an imaging spectrometer, instantly identify cancer-modified mitochondria in cells gone wrong. Mitochondria are known as the power pack of cells, energizing them like batteries do flashlight bulbs.

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute are reporting that mice created to lack a certain type of molecule known as an LPA receptor have fertility problems, which suggests that these receptors play a major role in conception.

In the latest issue of the journal Nature, the scientists detail how mice that lack LPA receptors, which normally appear on the surface of cells in a mouse's womb, have fertility problems. These mice are able to produce eggs normally, so that the eggs can be fertilized, but the resulting embryos, which are otherwise healthy, have problems implanting in the womb -- the last step in conception.

From the surface, the ocean appears to be vast and uniform. But beneath the surface, tiny animals called zooplankton are swept into clusters and patches by ocean currents. The very survival of many zooplankton predators--from invertebrates to whales--and the success of fishermen catches can depend on their success at finding those patches.

Eighteen new cases of polio have today been announced in Yemen, bringing the reported total number associated with an outbreak in the country to 22. Yemen had been polio-free since disease surveillance began in 1996 - a genetic investigation is ongoing to determine the precise origin of the outbreak. Experts fear that the number of cases will rise in the immediate future.

A Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) researcher at Cornell University has received a grant to help assemble a unique database of DNA mutations in maize (corn).

The project not only will allow researchers to study the effects of knocking out the function of single genes, one at a time, but also will create seeds for each mutation, or disrupted gene. The seeds will be made widely available to researchers.

Imagine discovering pandas in California or kangaroos in Argentina.

For David Wake, one of the world's leading experts on amphibians and a professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, an equivalent surprise was the recent discovery in Korea of a type of salamander that comprises the majority of species in the world, but is totally unknown in Asia and rare outside the Americas.

An international team that includes biologists at the University of California, San Diego has determined the complete genetic blueprint of Dictyostelium discoideum, a simple social amoeba long used by researchers as a model genetic system, much like fruit flies and laboratory mice, to gain a better understanding of human diseases.

The scientific details of this seven-year-long genetic sequencing effort, which involved 97 scientists from 22 institutions in five countries, are contained in a paper featured on the cover of the May 5 issue of the journal Nature.

Two infant boys whose bodies were overloaded with excess fluid have led UCSF pediatricians to the discovery of a new genetic disease. In the process, they have discovered a rare type of mutation where different substitutions in a single amino acid cause two different, opposite genetic disorders.

The new disorder, called Nephrogenic Syndrome of Inappropriate Antidiuresis (NSIAD), is described in the May 5 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.