Latest Scattering Stories

LENEXA, Kan., March 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Clinical Reference Laboratory (CRL) today announced that it has completed validation testing of DNA Genotek's Oragene-DNA saliva collection kits and will adopt Oragene-DNA for use with its molecular diagnostic services. CRL is a CLIA-certified molecular diagnostics services provider based in Lenexa, Kansas offering a wide assortment of molecular diagnostic services including gene expression profiling, microarrays, CNV/SNP typing, pathogen detection,...

A new study has revealed that the existence of "personal" hand bacteria, as unique as a person's fingerprints and DNA, could become the latest weapon for forensics experts in their attempts to solve crimes and identify victims.According to a press release, the researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder who conducted the study "swabbed bacterial DNA from individual keys on three personal computers and matched them up to bacteria on the fingertips of keyboard owners,...

Rice University team tests century-old calculationsCalculations are fine, but seeing is believing. That's the thought behind a new paper by Rice University students who decided to put to the test calculations made more than a century ago.In 1908, the German physicist Gustav Mie came up with an elegant set of equations to describe the interaction of electromagnetic waves with a spherical metal particle. The theory has been a touchstone ever since for researchers seeking to quantify how...

PITTSBURGH -- Repair proteins appear to efficiently scan the genome for errors by jumping like fleas between DNA molecules, sliding along the strands, and perhaps pausing at suspicious spots, say researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Essex and the University of Vermont who tagged the proteins with quantum dots to watch the action unfold. The findings are available today in Molecular Cell.Everyone is constantly bombarded with environmental toxins that inflict small...

One of the biggest questions facing scientists today is how life began. How did non-living molecules come together in that primordial ooze to form the polymers of life? Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have discovered that small molecules could have acted as "molecular midwives" in helping the building blocks of life's genetic material form long chains and may have assisted in selecting the base pairs of the DNA double helix. The research appears in the online early...

Unless you're interested in isotopic labeling, neutrons don't figure much into chemistry. Neutral in charge and a bit bigger than a proton, the neutron neither gives an atom its name nor determines much about its reactivity.But neutrons have some unsung properties that make them useful for investigating matter. Because they are neutral, they can penetrate deeper into a sample than electrons can. Because they have mass and spin, they have a magnetic moment and can probe magnetism. Because they...

An inexpensive, fast, accurate DNA test that reveals a person's risk of developing certain diseases is expected to become a reality, thanks to technology developed at the University of Edinburgh.Scientists have developed a method of pinpointing variations in a person's genetic code at critical points along the DNA chain. The technique could be used to analyze DNA in a drop of saliva.Tiny differences or omissions in DNA code can determine whether or not a person is healthy, susceptible to...

Arizona State University scientists have come up with a new twist in their efforts to develop a faster and cheaper way to read the DNA genetic code. They have developed the first, versatile DNA reader that can discriminate between DNA's four core chemical components⎯the key to unlocking the vital code behind human heredity and health.Led by ASU Regents' Professor Stuart Lindsay, director of the Biodesign Institute's Center for Single Molecule Biophysics, the ASU team is one of a handful...

Photothermal technique provides new way to track nanoparticlesStephan Link wants to understand how nanomaterials align, and his lab's latest work is a step in the right direction.Link's Rice University group has found a way to use gold nanorods as orientation sensors by combining their plasmonic properties with polarization imaging techniques.That may make it possible to see and perhaps track single nanoparticles over long periods. It would give researchers new information about materials,...

Neutron scattering experiments performed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory give strong evidence that, if superconductivity is related to a material's magnetic properties, the same mechanisms are behind both copper-based high-temperature superconductors and the newly discovered iron-based superconductors.The work, published in a recent Nature Physics, was performed at ORNL's Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) and High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) along with the ISIS...