An international collaboration of European research teams has just published an important study which directly attributes changes in mountain vegetation to climate change across the European continent.

US Department of Energy researchers from the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) reported in a recent paper that they have engineered the first bacterial strain that can digest the biomass of non-food crops and synthesize the sugars into all three forms of transportation fuel - gasoline, diesel and jet biofuels.

Sunbathers may soon be closer to hitting the beach or pool without having to lather up with sunblock thanks to a team of researchers led by Dr. Paul Long at King’s College London who recently discovered how natural sunscreen compounds are made by coral. The goal of the research is to understand the genetic and biochemical basis on how natural sunscreens are made with the vision of developing non-topical commercial sun protection products, potentially in the form of tablets. This would eliminate the oily mess that’s made using topical lotions and also reduce the struggle to apply to hard-to-reach places like one’s back. The discovery could also prompt efforts to bioengineer crop plants to be more UV-tolerant, especially in sunlight-intense areas of the world.

Researchers at Kansas State University have developed a new mechanical adhesive whose unique properties might make it well suited to be in every astronaut's toolbox. Unlike traditional chemical adhesives which can become brittle when moisture is removed, this new adhesive - made from peptides - actually forms a stronger bond.

Avtar Handa, a horticulture researcher with Purdue University has succeeded in slowing the aging process of transgenic tomato plants - extending the shelf life of picked tomatoes by about a week.

Dr. Young Ho Kim, of the Chungnam National University in Daejeon, Korea, and colleagues reported in the Journal of Natural Products that compounds isolated from the plant known as the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, inhibit the formation of osteoclasts.

This image gallery brings to focus the splendid vascular systems of common plants, and showcases the beauty that resides at all levels of the natural world. See the entire gallery.

Researchers from the Salk Institute in La Jolla, CA have been studying the power struggle between the master genetic switches within plant cells that determine the orientation for growth - that is which end will put down roots, and which end will grow the shoot.

A collaboration led by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) has developed a microbe that can produce an advanced biofuel directly from biomass. Deploying the tools of synthetic biology, the JBEI researchers engineered a strain of Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria to produce biodiesel fuel and other important chemicals derived from fatty acids.

Portland, Oregon. January, 2010 -- Labgrab.com is announcing the release of a data visualization tool that graphs the current volume of science news by discipline. The colorful chart shows various sized boxes based on the volume of article headlines published by universities, journals, science news aggregators, and science blogs.Read more...