The single most important issue obstructing the productivity of biomedical scientists today is the culture of research funding. This finding challenges the belief of some that the lack of "open access" to journal content is a major barrier to scientific productivity.

For most proteins, there is a particular place inside a cell where they carry out their function. But how do they get there? Scientists from the Charité Berlin, the University of Heidelberg, and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin have now been able to visualize the structure of a "molecular machine" involved in protein sorting using cryo-electron microscopy and single particle analysis.

Like coal-mine canaries, fish DNA can serve as a measure of the biological impact of water and sediment pollution--or pollution clean-up. That's one of the conclusions of a new study* by researchers from the Pacific Northwest Research Institute (PNRI), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the University of Maryland and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Max Planck scientists have identified a new strategy which motor proteins use to move.