Washington, April 11 : Scripps Research scientists say that they have determined the molecular structure of a plant photolyase protein, which is very similar to the two proteins that control the circadian clock in humans and other mammals.
The researchers claim that their study has even enabled them to test how structural changes affect the function of such proteins.
"The plant photolyase structure provides a much better model to use to study how the cryptochrome proteins in the human clock function than we have ever had before," says Dr. Kenichi Hitomi, a postdoctoral research fellow at Scripps Research.
The researchers in Canada have developed an instrument that pinpoints “edge of space,” where the space begins and the earth’s atmosphere ends. According to researchers from the University of Calgary, who created the tool, the “edge of space,” begins 118 km (73.3 miles), above sea level, above the Earth.
London, Apr 10 : An egg collected by Charles Darwin on his five-year voyage on the HMS Beagle in the 1830 and lost for nearly 200 years has been found in a drawer at the University of Cambridge.
The small dark brown egg, with Darwin''s name written on it, was found by Liz Wetton, 80, a volunteer at the Zoology Museum’s bird egg collection.
It bears a large crack, caused after the great naturalist put it in a box that was too small for it, reports The Independent.
Washington, April 10 : Archaeologists have excavated the largest 17th century bead repository found in coastal Georgia, with a recovery of roughly 70,000 beads manufactured all over the world.
The beads were found as part of an extensive, ongoing research project led by a team of scientists from the American Museum of Natural History on St. Catherines Island off the coast of Georgia.
Washington, April 10 : Geoscientists have said that the 2007 Solomon Island earthquake may point to previously unknown increased earthquake and tsunami risks because of the unusual tectonic plate geography and the sudden change in direction of the earthquake.
On April 1, 2007, a tsunami-generating earthquake of magnitude 8.1 occurred East of Papua New Guinea off the coast of the Solomon Islands.
The subsequent tsunami killed about 52 people, destroyed much property and was larger than expected.
Washington, April 10: Using data received from a instrument sent to space on a NASA launch from Alaska about two years ago, scientists have located the ‘edge of space’, and have confirmed that it begins 118 km above Earth.
The instrument – called the Supra-Thermal Ion Imager – was carried by the JOULE-II rocket on January 19, 2007.
It traveled to an altitude of about 200 kilometers above sea level and collected data for the five minutes it was moving through the “edge of space.”