After the tremendous discoveries in basic biology of the last 100 years, you might think that we would understand by now what a gene is. But the big news in genome biology this week is the publication of the results of the ENCODE project, a large scale experimental (as opposed to just computational) survey of the human genome. The leaders of the ENCODE project suggest that we need to, yet again, rethink just what exactly a gene is.

Parkinson disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disease characterized by the selective loss of midbrain dopaminergic neurons.

Although the cause of PD is unknown, pathological analyses have suggested the involvement of oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction. Recently, an inherited form of early-onset PD has been linked to mutations in both copies of the gene encoding the mitochondrial protein PINK1. Furthermore, increasing evidence indicates that single-copy mutations in PINK1 are a significant risk factor in the development of later-onset PD.

With a technology transfer agreement announced today, the first compact proton therapy system – one that would fit in any major cancer center and cost a fifth as much as a full-scale machine – is one step closer to reality.

Proton therapy is considered the most advanced form of radiation therapy available, but size and cost have limited the technology’s use to only six cancer centers nationwide.

Compact proton radiotherapy treatment concept
Illustration by Steven Hawkins

A team of LLNL researchers has conceptually proven that a three-in-one machine, or “universal point detection system,” that can detect explosive, chemical and biological agents all at the same time, can be achieved, said George Farquar, a postdoctoral fellow and physical chemist at the LLNL’s Glenn T. Seaborg Institute.

Audrey Martin adjusts the lens stack of SPAMS. Martin, who worked at LLNL for 15 weeks last summer as a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Fellow, is the first DHS intern hired into the Laboratory as a full-time student employee.

At some level, all types of matter that we usually deal with have at least one thing in common - they're made of particles. The solids, liquids, gases and plasmas that surround us are built of atoms, which are made of electrons, protons and neutrons. Protons and neutrons in turn are made of quarks.

According to Harvard University's Howard Georgi, however, there's at least the theoretical possibility that some matter in the universe is not made of particles at all. Georgi has dubbed the mind-bending matter "unparticle stuff," and hopes that we may see signs of it at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a super high energy proton collider due to come online in Europe later this year.

Alan Hubert and Dixie Dansercoer collect snow-depth data for ESA's CryoSat-2 mission. They're seasoned polar explorers so they are used to dealing with physically demanding and downright harsh conditions but what they encountered during their three and a half-month expedition from Russia to Greenland via the North Pole was dangerous even for them.

They didn't expect that the Lincoln Sea in the Arctic Ocean, the very ice they were on, would begin to disintegrate. Aside from the dangerous conditions they also had to circumnavigate the ice-free water leads.

Scientists at University College Cork have discovered that probiotic bacteria can protect against bacterial infection. The work was carried out in the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre (APC) in UCC.

The APC, funded by Science Foundation Ireland, was set up investigate the beneficial roles of the bacteria found in the gastro-intestine of healthy humans.

The research group examined a range of beneficial bacteria and found one specific probiotic bacterium (Lactobacillus salivarius UCC118) which was able to kill Listeria monocytogenes, an often lethal pathogen in pregnant women. The probiotic kills the pathogen by producing an antibiotic-like compound called a bacteriocin.

Engineers at Purdue University are developing robots able to make "educated guesses" about what lies ahead as they traverse unfamiliar surroundings, reducing the amount of time it takes to successfully navigate those environments.

The method works by using a new software algorithm that enables a robot to create partial maps as it travels through an environment for the first time. The robot refers to this partial map to predict what lies ahead.

The more repetitive the environment, the more accurate the prediction and the easier it is for the robot to successfully navigate, said C.S.

ScientificBlogging.com Featured Columnist Jane Poynter has written a book, The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2 , discussing her experiences inside the legendary long-term science experiment.

Using a new computational method called NetworKIN, researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital, MIT and EMBL can now use biological networks to better identify relationships between molecules, including regulation of protein networks that will ultimately help to target human disease.

“Our method works a bit like getting a recommendation from Amazon,” says Dr. Peer Bork, group leader at EMBL. “The fact that certain books have been bought by the same customers tells you that they have something in common. In the same way biological networks tell us about shared features between different proteins. These help us predicting which kinases are likely to act on them.”