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  February 3, 2004: Highlights

Macrophages on NSF FY 2005 Budget Request to Congress
Macrophages circulate through the blood, searching for bacterial infection. When bacteria are found, macrophages engulf and digest them. This series of three paintings shows a macrophage engulfing a bacterium. Only a portion of the two cells, where a pseudopod of the macrophage is extending over the bacterium, is shown. The original paintings are 1 meter tall--at this magnification, the macrophage would fill most of a building. Credit: © 2002 David S. Goodsell, Scripps Research Institute

NSF Fiscal 2005 Budget Request Is $5.745 Billion

The National Science Foundation (NSF) on Feb. 2 submitted to Congress a $5.745 billion budget request for fiscal year 2005. Foundation Director Rita Colwell says the funds will "address frontiers of knowledge and innovation that will strengthen economic growth and prosperity nationally." The 3 percent overall increase above the fiscal 2004 amount the president recently signed into law will allow NSF to continue support of its integrative research and education investments, Colwell stated. Further, the 2005 request increases funding specifically for research and related activities by 4.7 percent over the current-year level.
More... (posted February 3, 2004)


Self-assembly of gold-polymer nanorods
Self-assembly of gold-polymer nanorods results in a curved structure.
Credit: Chad Mirkin, Northwestern University

Nanoscale Building Blocks Form Spheres, Tubes and Curves—Self-Assembling Structures Could Find Wide Use in Nanoelectronics and Drug Delivery

Inspired by the molecular assembly techniques used in living cells, chemist Chad Mirkin and his colleagues at Northwestern University have created a new class of nanometer-scale building blocks that can spontaneously assemble themselves into ultra-tiny spheres, tubes and curved sheets. This is the first time that scientists have been able to make structures on this scale that curve in any fashion, as opposed to being straight or flat. Since the Mirkin group can also control the size and curvature of their structures very accurately, the technology could eventually lead to important applications in nanoscale electronics and drug-delivery systems.
More... (posted January 30, 2004)

 

Myoglobin, the first protein structure to be determined at high resolution.
Myoglobin, the first protein structure to be determined at high resolution.
Source: The Protein Data Bank

Protein Data Bank Opens New Era With Broader Support—Nearly 24,000 Molecules and Growing, Accessible Collection Advances Biology

The assets of the Protein Data Bank (PDB) just keep growing. The PDB holds the three-dimensional structures of nearly 24,000 proteins and other macromolecules in its growing - and publicly accessible - collection. Its holdings profile DNAs, RNAs, viruses, and various proteins, such as enzymes central to photosynthesis, growth, development and brain function. In January, with a doubling in the number of the federal agencies supporting it, the PDB begins a new five-year, $30 million management era, the National Science Foundation announced recently. The chapter opens following a new international agreement announced in December to pool and coordinate the deposit of molecular structure data globally.
More... (posted January 30, 2004)

NSF-supported scientists
NSF-supported scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles and their colleagues from the Russian Academy of Sciences drill into frozen Siberian peat bogs to determine the bogs' impact on climate.
Credit: Laurence C. Smith/NSF

Study Pinpointing Origins of Siberian Peat Bogs Raises Concerns that Arctic Thaw May Release Greenhouse Gases

Massive Siberian peat bogs, widely known as the permanently frozen home of untold kilometers of moss and uncountable hordes of mosquitoes, also are huge repositories for gases that are thought to play an important role in the Earth's climate balance, according to newly published research by a team of U.S. and Russian scientists in the Jan. 16 edition of the journal Science. Those gases, carbon dioxide and methane, are known to trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere, but the enormous amounts of the gases contained in the bogs haven't previously been accounted for in climate-change models.
More... (posted January 30, 2004)

Image of a catalyst
The researchers in the Frances Arnold group at the Caltech used directed evolution and site-directed mutagenesis to create cytochrome P450 BM-3 9-10A, a catalyst that converts alkanes into alcohols. By increasing the size of the A82 and A328 sections, the researchers created a catalyst that could tightly bind small alkanes.Credit: Frances H. Arnold Research Group, California Institute of Technology.

Researchers Coax Bacteria to Produce Powerful, Elusive Catalyst

Researchers have coaxed bacteria into producing a group of unique catalysts that can cleanly convert an alkane (a member of the carbon-based chemical family that includes octane) into specific alcohol products without also yielding unwanted molecules. Researchers have not been able to accomplish this result using other catalysts, and the approach may have broad applications in the chemical industry. In contrast to some industrial catalysts, these biocatalysts perform this difficult transformation in water, at room temperature, using oxygen from the air. The research also serves as a proof of concept for techniques that may help chemists convert some of Earth's bountiful methane (the smallest alkane) into the chemical workhorse, and occasional automotive fuel, methanol.
More... (posted January 30, 2004)

 

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