Notice something new? We have a new (and cute!) icon for the "general" section (don't remember the old one? That's why we changed it!). I have to say a big thanks to Dan Meyer who allowed us to use the little penguin from his Maximum Cool illustration! Now if only we could find something suitable for our "biotechnology" icon...

Mother Nature tops Time person of the year list
Light could trigger super-fast synthetic muscles
Two pandas tie the knot
Baby Panda at San Diego Zoo Named Su Lin
N.J. Biologist Studies Ice-Hardy Worms

The brains of babies born very prematurely do not develop as well as those who are carried to full-term, according to new research presented today at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Washington, D.C.

A gene thought to influence perception and susceptibility to drug dependence is expressed more readily in human beings than in other primates, and this difference coincides with the evolution of our species, say scientists at Indiana University Bloomington and three other academic institutions. Their report appears in the December issue of Public Library of Science Biology.

How a person "feels" the effects of alcohol is, in part, genetically influenced and relates to their risk for developing alcoholism. A low level of response (LR) to alcohol, or the need for a higher number of drinks to feel intoxication the first few times a person drinks, is more likely to occur in children of alcoholics, and predicts a greater risk for alcohol problems. A study in the November issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research has found that a gene on chromosome 10 – in particular, the KCNMA1 gene – is potentially linked to LR.

For clinicians, the ability to look routinely inside the body and see -- at the level of the cell -- how it confronts disease is a distant dream. But in a series of experiments with genetically engineered mice, a team of researchers from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) at the University of California Los Angeles has taken a key step toward realizing that vision by demonstrating the ability to peer inside the body non-invasively and see the immune system at work.

For all of the promise embryonic stem cells hold for therapies for neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease, they are notoriously difficult to use. One problem is in coaxing them into becoming brain cells that make dopamine, which is in short supply in the brains of individuals with Parkinson's. Such cells might be used for transplantation in these patients, but current methods involve extremely complex growth media and potentially contaminating animal products.

To achieve transport over larger distances, several motor molecules have to cooperate. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam have now developed a new theory that only seven or eight motor molecules are sufficient for directed transport over centimeters or even meters. They also show that an applied load force, which is shared by the pulling motors, strongly reduces the cargo velocity and leads to a highly nonlinear force-velocity relationship (PNAS, Advanced Online Publication, November 14-18, 2005).

Pumps implanted into the chest to maintain circulation can significantly extend the lives of the sickest patients in end-stage heart failure who are not candidates for heart transplantation, according to the results of a clinical trial led by Duke University Medical Center cardiologists.

Most of what happens in cells is the work of machines that contain dozens of molecules, chiefly proteins. With the completion of human and other genomes, researchers now have a nearly complete "parts list" of such machines; what's lacking now is the manual telling where all the pieces go. A new study by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) promises to answer this question for some of the smallest and trickiest components in the cellular toolbox. Their work appears in the current issue of the Public Library of Science's on-line journal, PLoS Biology.