ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Satiric news coverage—a format seen on programs such as “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”—decreases Arab American prejudice and bias against Al Jazeera English.
A new University of Michigan study finds that Americans can change their views about Al Jazeera English, a global news network, depending on how it is covered by other media.
AJE has not been welcomed in the United States, in part, because many people associate it with Al Qaeda and other American adversaries. Many Americans presume the network is biased and driven by an anti-American agenda. (more…)
Lariats are discarded byproducts of RNA splicing, the process by which genetic instructions for making proteins are assembled. A new study has found hundreds more lariats than ever before, yielding new information about how splicing occurs and how it can lead to disease.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Tiny, transient loops of genetic material, detected and studied by the hundreds for the first time at Brown University, are providing new insights into how the body transcribes DNA and splices (or missplices) those transcripts into the instructions needed for making proteins.
The lasso-shaped genetic snippets — they are called lariats — that the Brown team reports studying in the June 17 edition of Nature Structural & Molecular Biology are byproducts of gene transcription. Until now scientists had found fewer than 100 lariats, mostly by poring over very small selections of introns, which are sections of genetic code that do not directly code for proteins, but contain important signals that direct the way protein-coding regions are assembled. In the new study, Brown biologists report that they found more than 800 lariats in a publicly available set of billions of RNA reads derived from human tissues. (more…)
UA Professor Alison Hawthorne Deming is a highly regarded poet and essayist who, at most every turn, works to translate matters of science and nature into poetry and prose.
Electroluminescence has come a long way since its discovery at the start of the 20thcentury. For many years the scientists who pioneered its development struggled to come up with practical applications for electroluminescent technology – early uses of the discovery lacked the lifespan to work as practical lamps and light sources, whilst its unreliability made it difficult to use in displays and interfaces.
Undeterred by their setbacks, the boffins working on electroluminescence didn’t give up, and thank goodness, because today electroluminescent light has evolved into a technology that has myriad applications all over the planet. (more…)
HAWAI’I ISLAND, Hawai’i — The Hawaiian Islands’ largest atoll, French Frigate Shoals, is key to understanding how seabird nesting habitat will change with predicted rising sea levels, according to a team of U.S. Geological Survey biologists.(more…)
New research from North Carolina State University finds that gold nanoparticles with a slight positive charge work collectively to unravel DNA’s double helix. This finding has ramifications for gene therapy research and the emerging field of DNA-based electronics.
“We began this work with the goal of improving methods of packaging genetic material for use in gene therapy,” says Dr. Anatoli Melechko, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the research. Gene therapy is an approach for addressing certain medical conditions by modifying the DNA in relevant cells. (more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — What motivates people to work harder: The promise of reward or the threat of penalty?
A new study co-authored by a Michigan State University business scholar says it’s the carrot – and not the stick – that drives productivity.
The study, which appears in The Accounting Review, challenges previous research that says the threat of penalty is more effective for getting increased effort, said Karen Sedatole, associate professor of accounting in MSU’s Broad College of Business. (more…)
Tuberculosis can be a serious threat to monkeys and apes. A new technique for detecting the tuberculosis -causing bacteria could help in protecting the health of primate populations. The method can spot TB even among infected primates that show no outward sign of disease, but are still capable of spreading infection to others of their kind.(more…)
