Potential to greatly reduce surgical site infections Scientists from the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University Medical Center have shown that a narrow wavelength of ultraviolet (UV) light safely killed drug-resistant MRSA bacteria in mice, demonstrating a potentially safe and cost-effective way to reduce surgical site infections, a major public health concern. A paper just … Read more
Consumers may be about to get more options for the color natural wool products as Chinese scientists have used gene editing to alter the coat colors of sheep. The researchers in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, have bred five sheep with different colors with the technique, known as CRISPR-Cas9. At the Xinjiang Academy of Zootechnical … Read more
A transposon underlies this classic story of evolutionary adaptation. Scientists have finally identified the genetic change that enabled the black peppered moth (Biston betularia) to change shades—from a light, speckled color to a dark brown hue—to camouflage itself against Britain’s soot-blackened trees during the Industrial Revolution: a mutation in a gene calledcortex, according to a … Read more
A new method for stacking microscopic marbles into regular layers, producing intriguing materials which scatter light into intense colours and which change colour when twisted or stretched were devised by a team of researchers. The team, led by the University of Cambridge, used a new method called Bend-Induced-Oscillatory-Shearing (BIOS) to produce hundreds of metres of … Read more