AMHERST, Mass. – Biologist Samuel Hazen at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is one of more than 100 researchers who collaborated to publish this week in Nature, the entire genome of the model grass commonly known as purple false brome. It is the first member of this economically important grass family to have its DNA fully sequenced.
AMHERST, Mass. – A research team led by biochemist Scott Garman at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has for the first time determined the mechanism of one of the cell’s “recycling” enzymes, human alpha-galactosidase or alpha-GAL, as it breaks down substances in the lysosome, the cell’s recycling center. The work promises to aid treatment of a rare childhood metabolic disorder, Fabry disease. Patients may survive to adulthood but have compromised kidney function or heart disease, for example, due to lipid buildup in blood vessels, tissues and organs.
AMHERST, Mass. – Studying pollen tubes, University of Massachusetts Amherst plant cell biologist Peter Hepler and colleagues have captured some of the fastest growing tissues known, on camera for the first time, to advance understanding of fertilization processes critical to development of all fruits, nuts, grains, rice, corn, wheat and other crops we depend on for food.
AMHERST, Mass. – Based on a study of seasonal rainfall variations in the desert Southwest between 56,000 and 11,000 years ago as recorded in cave stalagmites, geoscientist Stephen Burns of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with colleagues at the University of New Mexico, suggest the rapidly growing Southwest could become even more arid as global temperatures rise. Their findings are published in this week’s Nature Geosciences and are corroborated by another study presented in the same issue.
AMHERST, Mass. – Is there a recipe a scientist might follow to spur creativity and cook up new discoveries? Cyber security expert Kevin Fu of the University of Massachusetts Amherst says spending time in the kitchen experimenting with basics, flour, salt and yeast, to bake artisanal bread helps to keep his creative juices flowing and gives him a great environment in which to mull over thorny research problems.
AMHERST, Mass. – Psychologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have designed a program for parents of hyperactive pre-school children and have openings for sessions that begin in February.
AMHERST, Mass. – The building of a smart electrical grid, pricing and stockpiling of pediatric vaccines and issues faced by South Africa in developing its research sector are among the topics to be covered in the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences Spring Speaker Series at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
AMHERST, Mass. – Researchers are finding that the ability to see very small things—objects 20,000 times thinner than a human hair—can help answer big biological questions. That’s why Jennifer Ross, a University of Massachusetts Amherst physicist, is building a new microscope that achieves super resolution, allowing scientists to see molecules 100 times smaller than are visible using traditional light microscopy.
AMHERST, Mass. – A pair of University of Massachusetts Amherst chemists believe they have for the first time explained how the main players in transcription—RNA polymerase, RNA and the DNA template—come together and link tightly enough to create a stable complex while DNA unwinds to pass crucial genetic information to RNA, but not so tightly that they can’t come apart easily once transcription is complete. This transcription process takes place in all cells and is essential for making the proteins that carry out almost every process important to life.
AMHERST, Mass. – Guy Lanza, a University of Massachusetts Amherst microbiologist, isn’t the only environmental scientist concerned that the hydroelectric power industry isn’t as green as it tries to seem, but he is certainly among the most willing to challenge it. In a report in the January/February edition of WorldWatch magazine, Lanza and a co-author warn that hydroelectric facilities from China to Belize are destroying ecosystems and uprooting locals “under the guise of promoting cheap, clean energy.”
