Scientists have discovered a fundamental shift in an enzyme’s function that could help expand the toolbox for engineering biofuels and other plant-based oil products.

In Abraham Stroock’s lab at Cornell, the world’s first synthetic tree sits in a palm-sized piece of clear, flexible hydrogel — the type found in soft contact lenses. Stroock and graduate student Tobias Wheeler have created a “tree” that simulates the process of transpiration, the cohesive capillary action that allows trees to wick moisture upward to their highest branches.

Water’s unrivaled omnipresence and the crucial role it plays in life drive scientists to understand every detail of its unusual underlying properties on the microscopic scale. Researchers now report how water solvates its intrinsic hydroxide (OH-) anion. Unraveling this behavior is important to advance the understanding of aqueous chemistry and biology.

Researchers have achieved a milestone in materials science and electron microscopy by taking a high-resolution snapshot of the transformation of nanoscale structures.

(University of Alaska Fairbanks) More than 150 scientists are expected to attend the 59th annual American Association for the Advancement of Science Arctic Division conference in Fairbanks, Alaska, Sept. 15-17, 2008.

As part of the research to place gadolinium atoms inside the carbon cage of a fullerene molecule for MRI applications, researchers created an 80-atom carbon molecule with two yttrium ions inside. They then replaced one of the carbon atoms with an atom of nitrogen and discovered that the extra electron ducks inside between the yttrium ions, forming a one-electron bond with unique spin properties that can be altered.

Scientists have succeeded in making unique nanoscale droplets that are much smaller than a human cell and can potentially be used to deliver pharmaceuticals.

(Florida State University) A Florida State University researcher who uses high-powered computers to map the workings of proteins has uncovered a mechanism that gives scientists a better understanding of how evolution occurs at the molecular level.

(RAND Corporation) Almost since the dawn of the nuclear age, experts have tried to assess the chance terrorists could acquire the raw materials and technological skill needed to assemble a nuclear bomb. In a new book, “Will Terrorists Go Nuclear?”, leading terrorism expert Brian Michael Jenkins explores both the risks and history of nuclear terrorism, and warns that terrorist may not even need to acquire such weapons to order to perpetrate “nuclear terror.”

(Rochester Institute of Technology) The US Department of Energy is funding the development of technology that will aid in the remote observation of power plants to gauge the actual amount of energy produced. The DOE has awarded Rochester Institute of Technology a total of $1.4 million on two related projects to perfect the detection of observable “signatures” at power plants.