Biochemistry

Why Does DNA Spontaneously Mutate? Quantum Physics Might Explain

Scientific American: Quantum mechanics, which rules the world of the teensy-tiny, may help explain why genetic mutations spontaneously crop up in DNA as it makes copies of itself, a recent study suggests. Quantum mechanics describes the strange rules that govern atoms…

Boosting bee diversity can help stabilise crop production

The Conversation: There are over 20,000 bee species and together they help pollinate more than 75% of the world’s leading food crops. Honeybees tend to hog the limelight, but few realise how important diversity is to this process. Having lots of…

One on one with Kristala L. J. Prather

C&EN: Kristala L. J. Prather is studying the design and assembly of novel pathways for biological synthesis, enhancement of enzymatic activity and control of metabolic flux, and bioprocess engineering and design. She spent 4 years at Merck Research Laboratories before…

Chirality and Nanotechnology Speed Up Light-Based Drug Screening

Photonics.com: A team of international collaborators has introduced a drug-screening technique that relies on nanostructure chirality as its fundamental property. (Chirality is a quality that, for a physical object, means it cannot be superimposed on its mirror image; think “left…