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Tiny microbes and molecular machines have an outsized impact on human health, and they play key roles in the vast global cycles that shape climate and make carbon and nitrogen available to all living things. 

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Science of life

This illustration shows arrestin, an important type of signaling protein

News Feature

This new technology could enable future insights into chemical and biological processes that occur in solution, such as vision, catalysis and photosynthesis.

UED liquid
Press Release

The giant cavity, in a protein that transports nutrients across the cell membrane, is unlike anything researchers have seen before.

A scientist working overlaid on a world map and images of tuberculosis bacteria.
News Feature

An LCLS imaging technique reveals how a mosquito-borne bacterium deploys a toxin to kill mosquito larvae. Scientists hope to harness it to fight disease.

A photograph of mosquito larvae.
News Brief

The 1950s and ‘60s poisoning event was long attributed to methylmercury, but studies at SLAC suggest a different compound was to blame. The findings...

Illustration of toxic waste being dumped from a pipe, a molecule, and a map showing the location of Minamata, Japan.
News Feature

A better understanding of this phenomenon, which is crucial to many processes that occur in biological systems and materials, could enable researchers to develop...

photoexcitation
News Brief

Cryogenic electron microscopy can in principle make out individual atoms in a molecule, but distinguishing the crisp from the blurry parts of an image...

An overall image of the apoferritin molecule (left) and a small section (right)
News Brief

A new understanding of the nucleation process could shed light on how the shells help microbes interact with their environments, and help people design...

Illustration of tiles forming a microbial shell
News Brief

What they learned could lead to a better understanding of how antibiotics are broken down in the body, potentially leading to the development of...

News Brief

A new study uncovers how a critical protein binds to drugs used to treat asthma and other inflammatory diseases.

Anti-asthmatic drugs
News Feature

A better understanding of ‘checkpoint proteins,’ which protect cancer cells against immune system strikes, could lead to the development of more effective drugs.

VISTA
News Feature

Molecular movie-making is both an art and a science; the results let us watch how nature works on the smallest scales.

Molecular movie frames for the light-triggered transition of the ring-shaped 1,3-CHD molecule.
News Feature

She is recognized for two decades of innovation and excellence at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource.

Aina Cohen