17 results found for environment

The complexity of modern biological life has long made it difficult to understand how life could emerge spontaneously from the chemistry of the early earth. We are attempting to synthesize simple artificial cells in order to discover plausible pathwa....

The diagnosis, classification, and treatment of human cancers are being transformed by scientific discoveries that were strongly influenced by the discovery of the c-src proto-oncogene, as described in the lecture by Michael Bishop. The path to this ....

The acquisition of scientific knowledge largely depends on the availability of appropriate research approaches and methodologies. Novel scientific knowledge represents cultural values. On the one hand, it enriches our world-view with impacts on our....

Ever since its first appearance, more than 3.5 billion years ago, life has evolved without guiding plan, propelled by: 1) its own intrinsic properties, which, with the help of outside energy, provided the necessary driving force; 2) accidental geneti....

Charles Darwin had based his theory of biological evolution on the observation that phenotypic variants of a given species can sometimes over-grow their parental population, and he attributed this to selective advantage, i.e., to the impact of natura....

The challenges associated with pursuing ribosomal crystallography can be described as a series of Everest climbing. At each step, when reaching the summit, a taller and more difficult one became exposed. Snapshots of this story will be described.__....

After reconsidering the very long time periods in cosmic evolution, we will focus our attention to the evolutionary development of living organisms on our planet Earth. The genetic variants (mutations), which are occasionally produced, are alteratio....

The epidemiology of Helicobacter pylori continues to be an area of discovery and controversy in the 21st century. The transmission of this bacterium from mother to child allows Helicobacter DNA to mimic the evolution of maternal mitochondria DNA. B....

Science is inevitably intertwined with society.  The state of the art of science, coupled with industrial endeavors, has determined our quality of life.  Chemists are proud of their ability to generate high value from almost nothing by using accumu....

As scientists, our livelihoods are supported by teaching and research, but we also have the opportunity to make observations beyond our usual confines and share these with non-scientific citizens. Growing up in my native state of Minnesota, I have al....

Chemistry is not merely a science of making observations in order to better understand Nature. Our science is creative and productive, generating substances of very high value from almost nothing. Chemists already have made enormous contribution to....

Climate change is the most serious environmental challenge facing society in the 21st century.  The basic science is clear: the International Panel on Climate Change concluded that there is more than 90% probability that human activities are causing....

Between the 50s and 80s, most studies in biomedicine focused on the central dogma - the translation of the information coded by DNA to RNA and proteins.  Protein degradation was a neglected area, considered to be a non-specific, dead-end process.  ....

Catalysis by solid surfaces is, among others, of importance for the chemical industry (e.g. the Haber-Bosch process) as well as for environmental chemistry (car exhaust catalyst).  Surface physical techniques enable investigation of the underlying e....

Much of the chemical industry is based on processes that were developed decades ago.  The change in the cost of petroleum carbon and energy sources and the need to control emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants will change the rules of the....

The acquisition of scientific knowledge largely depends on the availability of appropriate research approaches and methodologies.  Novel scientific knowledge represents cultural values.  On the one hand, it enriches our world-view with impacts on o....

The founders of quantum theory assumed in 'thought experiments' that they were manipulating isolated quantum systems, obeying the counterintuitive laws which they had just discovered.  Technological advances have recently turned these virtual experi....