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Researchers take snapshots of potential 'kill switch' for cancer

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

A study conducted in part at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has revealed how a key human protein switches from a form that protects cells to a form that kills them -- a property that scientists hope to exploit as a 'kill switch' for cancer.

Termite of the sea's wood destruction strategy revealed

DOE/Joint Genome Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Shipworms, known as 'termites of the sea,' have vexed mariners and seagoing vessels for centuries. A recent study involving scientists from the Ocean Genome Legacy Center of New England Biolabs at Northeastern University, the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, and other institutions has focused on the shipworm Bankia setacea to learn more about the enzymes it utilizes to break down wood for nutrition, information that may prove useful for the generation of biofuels.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

Scientists develop new way to study how human cells become immortal, a crucial precursor to cancer

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Berkeley Lab scientists have developed a new method that can easily create immortal human mammary epithelial cells. The cells could greatly facilitate the examination of cell immortalization as it actually occurs during cancer progression.

Journal: Cell Cycle

Synthetic biology for space exploration

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Synthetic biology may hold the key to long-termed manned explorations of Mars and the Moon. Berkeley Lab researchers show that biomanufacturing based on microbes could to make travel to and settlement of extraterrestrial locations more practical and bearable.

Journal: Journal of The Royal Society Interface
Funder: NASA

Discovering the undiscovered -- advancing new tools to fill in the microbial tree of life

DOE/Joint Genome Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In a perspective piece published Nov. 6 in the journal Science, Eddy Rubin, Director of the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute discusses why the time is right to apply genomic technologies to discover new life on Earth. 'Nature has been tinkering with life for at least three billion years and we now have a new set of ways to look for novel forms of life that have so far eluded discovery.'

Journal: Science
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, DOE/US Department of Energy, DOE/Office of Biological and Environmental Research

Golden approach to high-speed DNA reading

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Berkeley researchers have created the world's first graphene nanopores that feature integrated optical antennas. The antennas open the door to high-speed optical nanopore sequencing of DNA.

Journal: Nano Letters
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

Researchers hit milestone in accelerating particles with plasma

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists from the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of California, Los Angeles have shown that a promising technique for accelerating electrons on waves of plasma is efficient enough to power a new generation of shorter, more economical accelerators. This could greatly expand their use in areas such as medicine, national security, industry and high-energy physics research.

Journal: Nature
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

Berkeley Lab scientists ID new driver behind Arctic warming

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists have identified a mechanism that could turn out to be a big contributor to warming in the Arctic region and melting sea ice. They found that open oceans are much less efficient than sea ice when it comes to emitting in the far-infrared region of the spectrum, a previously unknown phenomenon that is likely contributing to the warming of the polar climate.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Outsmarting thermodynamics in self-assembly of nanostructures

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Berkeley Lab researchers have achieved symmetry-breaking in a bulk metamaterial solution for the first time, a critical step game toward achieving new and exciting properties in metamaterials.

Journal: Nature Nanotechnology
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, National Science Foundation

Thirdhand smoke: Toxic airborne pollutants linger long after the smoke clears

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have published a new study assessing the health effects of thirdhand smoke constituents present in indoor air. Looking at levels of more than 50 volatile organic compounds and airborne particles for 18 hours after smoking had taken place, they found that thirdhand smoke continues to have harmful health impacts for many hours after a cigarette has been extinguished.

Journal: Environmental Science & Technology
Funder: University of California's Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program