The Sleeping Beauty tranposon (SB-Tn) system, a gene therapy technology that avoids the pitfalls of transferring genes with viruses, shows promise in laboratory experiments for correcting the gene defect responsible for sickle cell disease (SCD), scientists in Minnesota are reporting.

The wild tiger now occupies a mere 7 percent of its historic range, and the area known to be inhabited by tigers has declined by 41 percent over the past decade, according to an article published in the June 2007 issue of BioScience.

Growing trade in folk medicines made from tiger parts and tiger skins, along with habitat loss and fragmentation, is believed to be the chief reason for the losses. The assessment, by Eric Dinerstein of the World Wildlife Fund and 15 coauthors, describes the wild tiger's population trajectory as "catastrophic" and urges international cooperation to ensure the animal's continued existence in the wild.

Scientists have captured on video the intracellular version of a postal delivery service. Reporting in the journal Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications (BBRC), bioengineering researchers at UC San Diego published videos of a key message-carrying protein called paxillin moving abruptly from hubs of communication and transportation activity on the cell surface toward the nucleus. Paxillin was labeled with a red fluorescence marker to make it stand out in live cells.

The science has long been clear that smoking causes cancer, but new research shows that children could inherit genetic damage from a father who smokes.

Canadian researchers have demonstrated in mice that smoking can cause changes in the DNA sequence of sperm cells, alterations that could potentially be inherited by offspring.

27 moves? They don't need no stinking 27 moves. Northeastern University Computer Science professor Gene Cooperman and graduate student Dan Kunkle set out to do what no one clamored for - solving any Rubik's Cube configuration in 26 moves, a new record.

Welcome to the family of cosets.

“The Rubik's cube is a testing ground for problems of search and enumeration,” says Cooperman. "Search and enumeration is a large research area encompassing many researchers working in different disciplines – from artificial intelligence to operations. The Rubik's cube allows researchers from different disciplines to compare their methods on a single, well-known problem."

“When we began the Human Genome Project, we anticipated it would take 15 years to sequence the 3 billion base pairs and identify all the genes,” said Dr. Richard Gibbs, director of the Human Genome Sequencing Center. “We completed it in 13 years in 2003 – coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the publication of the work of Watson and Dr. Francis Crick that described the double helix.

"Today, we give James Watson a DVD containing his personal genome – a project completed in only two months. It demonstrates how far the sequencing technology has come in a short time.”

A new report in the journal Cell confirms the existence of some apparently uncommitted stem cells amongst cells responsible for generating the bulging biceps of body builders and the rippling abs of fitness buffs. The findings could lead to new muscle-regenerating therapies—including cell transplantation regimens and stem cell-replenishing drugs—for people with various muscle-wasting diseases, including muscular dystrophies. Ultimately, such treatments might also help keep people strong as they age, according to the researchers.

A new vaccine aimed at preventing cervical cancer is nearly 100 percent effective against the two types of the human papillomavirus (HPV) responsible for most cases of cervical cancerÑstrains 16 and 18.

In the current and largest study to date, researchers combined and analyzed the data from four randomized trials that involved 20,583 women ages 15 to 26 from more than two dozen countries across Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia. Participants were randomly assigned to receive the HPV vaccine or placebo and followed for an average of three years.

Broccoli, eggplant, cabbage and capsicum grown with compost made from recycled garden offcuts have produced equivalent yields to those cultivated by conventional farm practice, but without the subsequent build up of phosphorus.

NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) scientists have found very high levels of phosphorus and low levels of organic carbon in vegetable growing soils, during a major research project designed to help Sydney Basin vegetable growers significantly improve soil quality and productivity.

Field trials could be underestimating the potential for cross-pollination between GM and conventional crops, according to new research by the University of Exeter. The research team recommends a new method for predicting the potential for cross-pollination, which takes account of wind speed and direction.

The research, published in the journal Ecological Applications, used records of wind speed and direction from weather stations across Europe to predict the movement of pollen in the air. The findings show huge variation in the amount of cross-pollination between GM and non-GM crops of maize, oilseed rape, rice and sugar beet.