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Scientists at universities and national laboratories across the country are now tapping into the power of the world's largest supercomputer dedicated to unclassified research and have reported important breakthroughs in climate research, materials science and astrophysics.

A substantial short cut to the biologically important information embedded in the human genome has been taken by an international research consortium with the completion of a draft sequence of the genome of the Japanese pufferfish Fugu rubripes. The Fugu draft sequence will be announced at the 13th International Genome Sequencing and Analysis Conference in San Diego, California on October 26th.

Phylos, Inc. has partnered today with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to develop high throughput methods for protein production to create research reagents and microarrays that may be used to design new drugs or disease diagnostic tools.

Dr. Edward Rubin, who heads the Genome Sciences Department in the Life Sciences Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), and Len Pennacchio, an Alexander Hollaender Distinguished Fellow working in Rubin's research group, led a study in which the new gene—named apoAV—was identified by comparing the DNA sequences of humans and mice. ApoAV's function was tested first in genetically engineered mice then in human clinical studies and shown to significantly influence triglyceride levels in both mammals.

n 1998, Nima Arkani-Hamed found himself pondering one of the conundrums of modern physics: why is gravity so much weaker than the other fundamental forces? Surrounded by massive objects like falling apples, orbiting moons, and our own occasionally clumsy bodies, we don't think of gravity as weak. Compared to electromagnetism, however-or the aptly named strong force that binds quarks, or even the "weak" force that governs some forms of radioactive decay-gravity is feeble.

Dendrimers may well become the flagship of nanotechnology's building blocks, a class of polymerized macromolecules that have the potential to provide the most exquisitely tailored forms and functions ever realized outside of nature.

Most of what we call nanotechnology involves hundreds or thousands of atoms but in a nanometer there's enough room for three atoms. If we are going to achieve real nanotechnology, we are going to have to learn how to put atoms together one at a time.

The emerging field of nanotechnology promises to change the way almost everything—from vaccines to computers—is designed and made.

Not only do nanotubes offer a full range of electrical and thermal conductivity properties (they conduct heat better than any other known material), they're also about a hundred times stronger than steel and more durable than diamonds. Their potential for use in electronics is nothing short of mind-boggling: if all the nanotubes that could be packed into a one-half-inch cube were to be laid out end to end, they would stretch some 250,000 miles.

t's their nanostructure that makes many crucial materials useful, and chemical processes essential to everyday life routinely do their work on the nanoscale. There's a lot more to nanoscience than building itty-bitty widgets. Catalysts are "helper" substances that promote chemical reactions without themselves being consumed. Nature's catalysts, enzymes, assemble only specific end products. Industrial catalysts are rarely so precise.