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 Nearly
90-percent of all human cancers involve epithelial cells. The TGF-ß protein plays a major
role in controlling the growth and differentiation of epithelial cells,
sending a signal that stops their unchecked growth. In a paper published in Science,
a research team led by Kunxin Luo has shown that two closely related
proteins, long suspected of being major contributors to the development of
a number of cancers, interact with another family of proteins to completely
shut down the TGF-ß signal.
 In the
field of superconductivity, the holy grail for the past 14 years has been
room-temperature superconductors. Room-temperature superconductors
potentially could create a new world of dirt-cheap electrical power and
magnetically levitated high-speed trains. No one knows the recipe
for making such materials nor is the physics underlying high-temperature
superconductivity fully understood. In a paper published in Nature
on February 17, researchers detail new insights into the atomic-level
mechanisms underlying high-temperature superconductivity.
Berkeley Lab researchers have connected two cyclotrons here, crafting a
relatively simple and inexpensive means of studying nuclear reactions in
which one of the reaction partners is radioactive. Researchers are
now able to further explore the mechanisms of energy production in the
stars, which depend upon short-lived isotopes like those that can be
produced by the
new BEARS project.
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