Science Highlights

Highlight Archive: 2011 | 10 | 09 | 08 | 07 | 06 | 05 | 04 | 03 | 02 | 01

Researchers Uncover Details of Joint Injuries in Children
Scientists working in part at NSLS have learned new information about how the knee joints of children are damaged as the result of a compression injury, which could happen during sports or play.

NSLS Nanoscience Research May Lead to Better Auto Tires
Scientists working at NSLS have investigated a material that may lead to greatly improved tires for cars and other vehicles. Their study is an example of how incorporating nanoparticles into a regular substance can produce a material with superior properties; in this case, increased durability and heat resistance.

Expanding the Degrees of Surface Freezing
As part of the quest to form perfectly smooth single-molecule layers of materials for advanced energy, electronic, and medical devices, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have discovered that the molecules in thin films remain frozen at a temperature where the bulk material is molten.

The Role of Metal Ions in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects motor neurons in the spinal cord, leading to muscle weakness, paralysis, and death within two to five years. With a lifetime risk of 1 in 2,000, ALS is the most common motor neuron disease.

Cracking the Children's Fingerprint Disappearing Act
Children's fingerprints disappear faster than those of adults — a little-known fact that can hamper investigations of kidnapping cases. To investigate this phenomenon, a team of researchers used beams of infrared light at NSLS as a powerful detective's microscope, finding that fingerprint staying power is based on the amount and types of oil in your skin.

Key Difference in How TB Bacteria Degrade Doomed Proteins
Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University have discovered a key difference in the way human cells and Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria, which cause TB, deliver unwanted proteins — marked with a "kiss of death" sequence — to their respective cellular recycling factories. This critical difference may help scientists design drugs to disable the bacterial system while leaving normal human protein recycling centers intact.

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