A multinational team of environmental and occupational health researchers has found that consumer paints sold in Nigeria contain dangerously high levels of lead.

An international collaboration directed by an Oak Ridge National Laboratory researcher has performed the first-ever atomic-detail computer simulation of how proteins vibrate in a crystal.

A snake's intended prey might affect the type and evolution of toxins in their venom, research published in the online open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology shows.

To move a gene from point A to point B, scientists and gene therapists have two proven options: a virus, which can effectively ferry genes of interest into cells, and a plasmid, an engineered loop of DNA that can do the same thing, albeit usually only on a short-term basis.

The Smithsonian’s National Zoo recently acquired 12,000 new animals—microscopic Elkhorn coral larvae harvested by National Zoo scientists in Puerto Rico—as part of an international collaborative program to raise the threatened species. National Zoo scientists hope to one day return the animals, once they are grown, to their wild ocean habitat.

A research team led by San Jose State University and the University of California, Santa Barbara has discovered forests of a species of kelp previously thought endangered or extinct in deep waters near the Galapagos Islands. The discovery has important implications for biodiversity and the resilience of tropical marine systems to climate change. The research paper describing the discovery is published in this week’s on-line issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers from MIT, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and other institutions have demonstrated the safety of a promising type of genetic therapy that could lead to treatments for a wide range of diseases such as cancer.