news 2013

For us, it strongly supports a new paradigm to be investigated - using these four-stranded structures as targets for personalised treatments in the future." —Shankar Balasubramanian In 1953, Cambridge researchers Watson and Crick published a paper describing the interweaving 'double helix' DNA structure - the chemical code for all life.

An area of the Amazon rainforest three times the size of the United kingdom was strongly affected by a drought that began in 2005, says a NASA-led team that includes researchers from Oxford. The results, together with observed increases in rainfall variability and associated forest damage in southern and western Amazonia during the past decade, suggest these rainforests may be witnessing the first signs of potential large-scale degradation due to climate change.

Researchers at the School of Biosciences have identified an unexpected role for a tumour-associated gene in breast cancer. Previous studies using tumour cells grown in the laboratory had suggested that the gene, Bcl3, regulated tumour growth. However when the research team, led by Richard Clarkson , looked at the effect of suppressing this gene in mammary tumours inside the body, they found that this had no effect on tumour growth, but instead prevented the tumours from spreading to other organs.

Scientists are filtering through bags of gravel from the bed of the ocean display at Blackpool Sea Life Centre, and expect a final haul of more than 12,000 shark teeth. Oxygen atoms in the discarded teeth can reveal the temperature the sharks lived in, and a University of Birmingham research team hopes by studying them it can perfect the technique for use on fossil shark teeth.

Our findings indicate that preventative strategies might be more effective if they were tailored more closely to those individuals at risk according to their personality profile and brain structure." —Dr Karen Ersche People who take cocaine over many years without becoming addicted have a brain structure which is significantly different from those individuals who developed cocaine-dependence, researchers have discovered.

New research led by a team at Queen Mary, University of London, has found evidence of how daily changes in temperature affect the fruit fly's internal clock. "A wide range of organisms, including insects and humans, have evolved an internal clock to regulate daily patterns of behaviour, such as sleep, appetite, and attention," explains Professor Ralf Stanewsky , senior study author from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences.

Building a quantum computer is one of the great challenges of modern physics, and it is hoped that the new teleportation protocol will lead to advances in this area." —Sergii Strelchuk For the last ten years, theoretical physicists have shown that the intense connections generated between particles as established in the quantum law of 'entanglement' may hold the key to eventual teleportation of information.

Researchers have discovered a social chromosome in the highly invasive fire ant that helps to explain why some colonies allow for more than one queen ant, and could offer new solutions for dealing with this pest. The red fire ants live in two different types of colonies: some colonies strictly have a single queen while other colonies contain hundreds of queens.

Based on a news release from the Wellcome Trust Photo: Frank Herdholdt A 48-week course of antiretroviral medication taken in the early stages of HIV infection slows the damage to the immune system and delays the need for long term treatment, according to research published today in the New England Journal of Medicine .

Multicellularity in cyanobacteria originated before 2.4 billion years ago and is associated with the accumulation of atmospheric oxygen, subsequently enabling the evolution of aerobic life, as we know it today, according to a new study from the University of Zurich involving researchers now at the University of Bristol , and Gothenburg.

Genetic differences are significantly associated with the likelihood that people take on managerial responsibilities, according to new research from UCL (University College London). The study, published online in Leadership Quarterly , is the first to identify a specific DNA sequence associated with the tendency for individuals to occupy a leadership position.

Safety fears about carbon nanotubes, due to their structural similarity to asbestos, have been alleviated following research showing that reducing their length removes their toxic properties. In a new study, published today in the journal Angewandte Chemie, evidence is provided that the asbestos-like reactivity and pathogenicity reported for long, pristine nanotubes can be completely alleviated if their surface is modified and their effective length is reduced as a result of chemical treatment.

Tough limits on global greenhouse gas emissions could reduce some climate change damage by two-thirds Tough limits on global emissions of greenhouse gases could avoid 20 to 65% of the damaging effects of climate change by 2100 according to new research involving experts from The University of Nottingham and led by the University of Reading's Walker Institute.

Increasingly hot summer weather could cause a fall in crop yields over the next two decades unless farming techniques are improved more quickly, scientists at the University have found. High temperatures are having an increasingly damaging effect on maize (sweetcorn) in France – the largest supplier of the crop to the UK – which may explain a recent slowdown in the trend towards higher yields, according to researchers at the Universities of Leeds, Reading and Exeter.

Scientists at the Universities of Leeds and York have discovered that the majority of ozone-depleting iodine oxide observed over the remote ocean comes from a previously unknown marine source. The research team found that the principal source of iodine oxide can be explained by emissions of hypoiodous acid (HOI) – a gas not yet considered as being released from the ocean – along with a contribution from molecular iodine (I2).

The results of this study force us to re-write the textbook on backbone evolution in the earliest limbed animals" —Stephanie Pierce Research published today (Sunday 13 January 2013) in the journal Nature documents, for the first time, the intricate three-dimensional structure of the backbone in the earliest four-legged animals (tetrapods).

It is generally appreciated that frogs and salamanders have remarkable regenerative capacities, in contrast to mammals, including humans. For example, if a tadpole loses its tail a new one will regenerate within a week. For several years Enrique Amaya and his team at The Healing Foundation Centre in the Faculty of Life Sciences have been trying to better understand the regeneration process, in the hope of eventually using this information to find new therapies that will improve the ability of humans to heal and regenerate better.

Writing , the scientists, working with colleagues from Aix-Marseille University , have created a device which potentially can see one molecule though a simple optical system and can analyse its components within minutes. This uses plasmonics - the study of vibrations of electrons in different materials.

A Scottish researcher has unearthed seven long lost manuscripts, including correspondence between Robert Burns and his close friends, which throw significant new light on the life and work of the poet. The manuscripts are believed among some of the most important findings concerning Burns in recent years, and this research offers academics and scholars new resources through which to study his life and works.

New and more effective strains of the fungus used to produce penicillin could be developed after a team of international scientists unearthed the secret sex life of Sir Alexander Fleming's fungus Penicillium chrysogenum (P. chrysogenum). The scientists from The University of Nottingham , Ruhr-University Bochum, The University of Göttingen, and Sandoz GmbH have announced a major breakthrough in our understanding of the sex life of the fungus P. chrysogenum.