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Erica P. JohnsonApreschool girl with black braids presses a finger to a disk that twists a brightly lit DNA model, transforming its ladder shape into a double helix. Her head bops from side to side in wonder as the towering DNA coils and straightens. When a bigger boy claims her place, the girl joins meandering moms and dads with their charges as they twist knobs, open flaps, and simply stare at flashing helixes and orange information boards: all a part of the museum exhibit called "Genome: The

Sunbathers at the beach could soon be applying DNA for protection rather than the highest SPF. Researchers led by David Goukassian and Barbara Gilchrest at the Boston University School of Medicine found that topical application of oligonucleotides increases DNA-repair after extensive UV exposure, thus reducing incidence of skin cancer in mice.Goukassian's team applied thymidine dinucleotide (pTT) to hairless mice prone to skin cancer.1 The topical DNA treatment upregulated and activated p53, enh

© Eye of Science/Photo ResearchersWhen a yeast cell falls onto an apple in the spring, life is good. Plentiful food and good weather maintain growth and division. But the good times don't last forever. "When resources dwindle due to competition, it makes sense to kill the less fit cells," says Frank Madeo of the Institute for Physiological Chemistry in Tübingen, Germany.Madeo and colleagues have mimicked the apple scenario in cultures to show that old Saccharo myces cerevisiae cells vo

Courtesy of Eric Robert RussellRecent gene-expression findings may energize the search for a mechanism in bipolar disorder pathology. Chris-tine Konradi and collaborators, from McLean Hospital, Belmont, Mass., and Harvard Medical School, showed that of 43 genes downregulated in brain specimens from subjects with bipolar disorder, 18 encode mitochondrial proteins.1 These results bolster a hypothesis put forth almost four years ago by Tadafumi Kato, currently at the RIKEN Brain Research Institute

Courtesy of BD BiosciencesSan Jose, Calif.-based BD Biosciences Immunocytometry Systems http://www.bdbiosciences.com has introduced a new benchtop high-content analysis system. Designed to handle 96-well plates, the BD FACSArray™ Bioanalyzer uses red and green laser excitation and offers six-parameter detection. Up to 15,000 events can be screened per second, and the system, which features digital signal processing, can run one plate in less than 35 minutes, says Tony Ward, director of pha

Courtesy of TILL PhotonicsRainer Uhl, CEO of Gräfelfing, Germany-based TILL Photonics http://www.till-photonics.com, laments that while the field of microscopy has evolved dramatically over the last century, the classical light microscope itself has not. New applications such as confocal and multiphoton microscopy were adapted to the microscopes rather than vice versa, placing constraints on the user.Uhl and colleagues, in cooperation with the BioImaging Zentrum of the University of Munich,

I have never thought stuffed birds make good museum exhibits. A stuffed bird looks exactly that – stuffed. Compared to mammals or arthropods, birds lack physical diversity; their behavior and song are far more interesting, but neither survives the stuffing process. Which is why, on childhood trips to London's Natural History Museum, I'd always hurry through the bird gallery to get to the insects beyond (dead insects are nearly as good as live ones). However, one particular avian exhibit wo

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