In the storerooms of a Venice, Italy, museum, a University of California, Berkeley, scholar and Italian experts are at work on a rare collection, but the objects aren't Renaissance paintings or the art of ancient glassblowers.

When it comes to digestive ability, termites have few rivals due to the gut activities that allow them to literally digest a two-by-four. But they do not digest wood by themselves-they are dependent on the 200 or so diverse microbial species that call termite guts home and are found nowhere else in nature.

Computers and liquids are not very compatible, as many a careless coffee-drinking laptop owner has discovered. But a new breakthrough by researchers at the California Institute of Technology could result in future logic circuits that literally work in a test tube-or even in the human body.

In the storerooms of a Venice, Italy, museum, a University of California, Berkeley, scholar and Italian experts are at work on a rare collection, but the objects aren't Renaissance paintings or the art of ancient glassblowers. Instead, the team is collecting samples from the largest and best preserved collection of fungi in Italy to create an unprecedented DNA database.

88 percent sensitivity for colon cancer reported using non-invasive screening test

How does an organism know when it must produce a protein and in what amount? Clever control mechanisms are responsible for the regulation of protein biosynthesis. One such type of mechanism, discovered only a few years ago, is riboswitches, which function as a sort of "off" switch for the production of certain proteins.

Parasite's DNA has nearly 47,000 genetic variations worldwide; kills every 30 seconds

It turns out that sequencing the human genome determining the order of DNA building blocks -- has not completely cracked the code of how DNA directs various cellular processes. In addition to the sequence of the base pairs, the instructions are in the packaging how DNA is folded within a cell.

It may look like mistletoe wrapped around a flexible candy cane. But this molecular model shows how some proteins form loops in DNA when they chemically attach, or bind, at separate sites to the double-helical molecule that carries life's genetic blueprint.

Weight determination of individual viruses with a miniature ion trap