HOUSTON - A team of investigators led by a physician-scientist at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has shown for the first time that the small protein SUMO can team up with the replication protein A (RPA) complex to facilitate DNA repair. The study is published in the Aug. 13 edition of the journal Molecular Cell.

Two Arizona State University researchers conducting zooarchaeological and archaeometric analyses of four fossilized animal bone fragments found by the Dikika Research Project in northeastern Ethiopia – within walking distance of the discovery of the hominin skeleton "Lucy" (Australopithecus afarensis) – confirm that unusual marks on the bones were inflicted by stone tools. Their conclusion weighs in on findings reported in the Aug. 12 journal Nature, that A. afarensis used sharp-edged stones and a strong striking force to cleave flesh and marrow from large-sized animal carcasses some 3.4 million years ago.

Chemists and engineers at Harvard University have fashioned nanowires into a new type of V-shaped transistor small enough to be used for sensitive probing of the interior of cells.

Single neurons in the brain are surprisingly good at distinguishing different sequences of incoming information according to new research by UCL neuroscientists.