Scientists use Amazon Cloud to view molecular machinery in remarkable detail
In this week's Nature Methods, Salk researchers share a how-to secret for biologists: code for Amazon Cloud that significantly reduces the time necessary to process data-intensive microscopic images.
View ArticleTeaching robots lateral thinking: New algorithms could help household robots...
Many commercial robotic arms perform what roboticists call "pick and place" tasks: The arm picks up an object in one location and places it in another. Usually, the objects—say, automobile components...
View ArticleBiologists simulate a cell in action
(Phys.org) —The inner workings of a cell involve hundreds of thousands of discrete molecules, engaged in a repeating cycle of interactions that sustain life.
View ArticleSushi-go-round—Japan tradition served with technology
With its masters required to hone their skills over decades, sushi in Japan is steeped in tradition. But it is also often a high-tech operation where robotic precision steals the limelight from the...
View ArticleChinese businessman's plan produces few cars, jobs
In October 2009, GreenTech Automotive Inc.'s owner, Chinese businessman Xiaolin "Charles" Wang, unveiled four prototype cars during a flashy ceremony and promised to build a $2 billon plant in...
View ArticleFast plant is boost for Japan auto also-ran Mazda
Mazda, the longtime also-ran of Japanese automakers, says it came up with innovations in nearly every step of auto manufacturing for a super-efficient assembly line that rolls off vehicles at a...
View ArticleThe human touch makes robots defter
Cornell engineers are helping humans and robots work together to find the best way to do a job, an approach called "coactive learning."
View ArticleNew solar cell is more efficient, less costly
(Phys.org) —American innovators still have some cards to play when it comes to squeezing more efficiency and lower costs out of silicon, the workhorse of solar photovoltaic (PV) cells and modules...
View ArticleIllumina announces $1000 whole human genome sequencing machine
(Phys.org) —Genome sequencing-technology company, Illumina, based in San Diego has announced (at the annual JP Morgan Healthcare Conference) that its new machine, called the HiSeq X Ten is able to...
View ArticleEnzyme 'wrench' could be key to stronger, more effective antibiotics
Builders and factory workers know that getting a job done right requires precision and specialized tools. The same is true when you're building antibiotic compounds at the molecular level. New findings...
View ArticleNature's chem lab: How microorganisms manufacture drugs
Researchers at the University of Michigan have obtained the first three-dimensional snapshots of the "assembly line" within microorganisms that naturally produces antibiotics and other drugs.
View ArticleWhen temperatures get cold, newly-discovered process helps fruit flies cope
Cold-blooded animals cannot regulate their body temperature, so their cells are stressed when facing temperature extremes. Worse still, even at slightly colder temperatures, some biological processes...
View ArticleNanoscale production line for the assembly of biological molecules
Cars, planes and many electronic products are now built with the help of sophisticated assembly lines. Mobile assembly carriers, on to which the objects are fixed, are an important part of these...
View ArticleChemists create 'assembly-line' for organic molecules
(Phys.org) —Scientists at the University of Bristol have developed a process where reagents are added to a growing carbon chain with extraordinary high fidelity and precise orientation, thereby...
View ArticleDefying textbook science, study finds new role for proteins
Open any introductory biology textbook and one of the first things you'll learn is that our DNA spells out the instructions for making proteins, tiny machines that do much of the work in our body's...
View ArticleToyota unveils fuel-cell car assembly line
Toyota President Akio Toyoda on Tuesday unveiled the assembly line that is making the first mass market fuel-cell car.
View ArticleProtein determines life or death fate of stressed cells
Researchers discovered a new protein involved in the process that determines the fate of cells under stress and whether they fight to survive or sacrifice themselves for the greater good.
View ArticleResearchers engineer E. coli to produce new forms of popular antibiotic
Like a dairy farmer tending to a herd of cows to produce milk, researchers are tending to colonies of the bacteria Escherichia coli (E. coli) to produce new forms of antibiotics—including three that...
View ArticleAluminum clusters shut down molecular fuel factory
Despite decades of industrial use, the exact chemical transformations occurring within zeolites, a common material used in the conversion of oil to gasoline, remain poorly understood. Now scientists...
View ArticleMolecular machine, not assembly line, assembles microtubules
When they think about how cells put together the molecules that make life work, biologists have tended to think of assembly lines: Add A to B, tack on C, and so on. But the reality might be more like a...
View ArticleScientists produce cancer drug from rare plant in lab
Many of the drugs we take today to treat pain, fight cancer or thwart disease were originally identified in plants, some of which are endangered or hard to grow. In many cases, those plants are still...
View ArticleOvertime and adding options led to auto recalls costing $167 million over...
A study of North American auto production over a seven-year period finds that using overtime and increasing the number of factory-installed options are positively associated with manufacturing-related...
View ArticleResearchers tweak enzyme 'assembly line' to improve antibiotics
Researchers from North Carolina State University have discovered a way to make pinpoint changes to an enzyme-driven "assembly line" that will enable scientists to improve or change the properties of...
View ArticleSequencing poisonous mushrooms to potentially create medicine
A team of Michigan State University scientists has genetically sequenced two species of poisonous mushrooms, discovering that they can theoretically produce billions of compounds through one molecular...
View ArticleNew approach improves potential HIV vaccine
By engineering an on/off switch into a weakened form of HIV, University of Nebraska-Lincoln researchers have enhanced the safety and effectiveness of a potential vaccine for the virus that has killed...
View ArticleAntibiotic insight may help in battle against bacterial resistance
Bacteria or 'superbugs' that have adapted to resist multiple antibiotics are responsible for around 700,000 deaths globally a year; new types of antibiotics are urgently needed.
View ArticleResearchers design soft, flexible origami-inspired robot
A Case Western Reserve University researcher has turned the origami she enjoyed as a child into a patent-pending soft robot that may one day be used on an assembly line, in surgery or even outer space.
View ArticleA spring-loaded sensor for cholesterol in cells
Although too much cholesterol is bad for your health, some cholesterol is essential. Most of the cholesterol that the human body needs is manufactured in its own cells in a synthesis process consisting...
View ArticleThe future of crop engineering
Photosynthesis is the process underlying all plant growth. Scientists aim to boost photosynthesis to meet the increasing global demand for food by engineering its key enzyme Rubisco. Now, researchers...
View ArticleNew active ingredients from the toolbox
Microorganisms often produce natural products in a step-by-step manner similar to an assembly line. Examples of such enzymes are non-ribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPS). Researchers at Goethe...
View Article
