Massachusetts' $1 billion life sciences bill is inching closer to approval. A preliminary vote yesterday in the House of Representatives supported the measure, which is being debated further today, according to the House clerk's office.

The bill, which is expected to pass in both the House and the Senate, would provide $500 million toward building facilities and buying equipment, and $250 million would go towards creating tax benefits... Click to continue

DNA damage resets the circadian clock in mammals, researchers report in this week's online issue of Current Biology.

Previous studies have shown that DNA damage affects circadian cycles in the fungus Neospora. Here, Malgorzata Oklejewicz at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands and colleagues demonstrated the effect not only in mammalian cell lines, but also in mice in vivo. "This interaction between DNA damage... Click to continue

Have you ever wondered how your day-to-day work in the lab can contribute to health and science efforts in the developing world? The New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) is inviting scientists to offer up their skills and resources toward an effort called "Scientists Without Borders," an online portal that will go live this spring.

Not only will researchers be able to offer their skills and expertise, they can also set up collaborations and request patient samples or specimens from... Click to continue

Some organisms adopt an unusual strategy to make sure the genetic code is translated accurately, according to study that will be published tomorrow in Molecular Cell. These findings suggest that ancient organisms may have used different techniques to maintain accuracy in translation before settling on the predominant strategy.

In most organisms, the start of translation is coded by the sequence AUG. This sequence triggers the binding of tRNA that carries... Click to continue

In a time when all coral news is bad news, a new study that will be published online Saturday in Geophysical Research Letters (read the press release here) suggests that areas of open ocean can act as a natural thermostat, protecting corals from bleaching by preventing surface water temperature from going up.

(You can read more about coral bleaching and about the other effects of global warming on the biome in our ... Click to continue

Free radicals are often blamed for causing cellular damage that promotes aging. A new study published today in Cell Metabolism suggests that they don't wreak cellular havoc, but plug into specific signaling pathways involved in aging.

Gaelle Laurent at the Curie Institute in Paris and colleagues created knockout mice missing gene that protects cells... Click to continue

The first keynote presentation of this week's Keystone meeting on autoimmunity and transplantation tolerance ended in a rather surprising way -- the speaker was actually heckled during the question answer session for comparing autoimmunity to cancer.

When the mechanisms that keep the immune system from attacking itself break down, diseases like diabetes type 1, lupus, and psoriasis can result. Many in the field have focused on how particular inherited mutations change the immunological... Click to continue