To resist the summer heat, winter cold and other harsh environmental conditions, many insects fall temporarily in a state similar to hibernation to conserve energy. A team of scientists believe that this phenomenon could be exploited to develop new methods of pest control.

The study shows that different agencies use different mechanisms to reach that period of numbness and arrested development in a state similar to hibernation, called diapause. (more…)

For if the concern about global climate change is not enough, the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is an even more resounding example of the desirability of abandoning fossil fuels and use others that are renewable, can be produced in a sustainable and do not put the environment at risk.

Liquid fuels derived from biomass plants have the potential to be used as direct substitutes for gasoline, diesel and aviation fuels, as long as they can have cost-effective means of commercial production. (more…)

When the first warm rays of spring sunlight activates a cascade of outbreaks of vegetation, is almost as if someone flip a switch to start the machinery plant and unleash an explosion of greenery. Scientists from Brookhaven National Laboratory, U.S., and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, have opened a window into this process to decipher the structure of a “switch” molecular very similar to that plants use to perceive light. (more…)

When exactly oxygen appeared for the first time in Earth’s atmosphere in significant quantities? Although it is believed that many physical and chemical processes responsible for this profound transformation, scientists have tried to address at least part of this question, the strategy of seeking the origin of oxygenic photosynthesis (the process used by agencies to split water and produce oxygen) in rocks of several billion years old. (more…)

For the first time, researchers have characterized the structure of a protein belonging to certain enzymes that are essential for the proper functioning of all life forms, from yeast to humans.

The enzymes, which belong to the family Sac, involved in cell signaling and trafficking across membranes.

Scientists have discovered that when you’re not the gene that expresses the enzymes Sac in animals, they die, and mutations of genes involved in humans lead to cancer and certain hereditary neurodegenerative diseases. (more…)

Most drugs are designed to act on proteins whose malfunction leads to damage or disease in the body. The active ingredient in these medicines is usually a substance whose molecules can interact with a protein to stop the evil functioning.

However, finding such a molecule is not easy. You must have a shape and configuration that allows you to bind to a protein in what is known as “hot spots” on its surface. Whichever greater it is the number of active points to which one connects, greater will be its therapeutic potential.

To accomplish this, many drug molecules are composed of subunits that are connected by chemical bonds. An ideal drug molecule to the protein problem on which it is intended to act should be a combination of subunits with the ability to adhere to each active site the best possible way. (more…)