Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have used advanced imaging techniques to solve the structure of one of nature's most important molecular machines. A clearer picture of this motor-like protein, which spins along strands of bacterial messenger RNA to read and translate it into proteins, may help pharmaceutical researchers develop new antibiotics. The researchers studied a version of the protein called Rho from E. coli bacteria. This type of protein, called a transcription factor, is also important in human development and disease.

In the video below, Rho, which is shaped like a hexagon with a hole in the center, is shown in cross section as it walks along the RNA strand, shown in orange. Rho spirals in such a way that it can only move in one direction along the RNA strand, which is crucial to making proteins properly.

In order to get a better picture of Rho, the Berkeley researchers used the lab's Advanced Light Source, which accelerates electrons to very high energies in order to create some of the brightest x-rays in the world. Using these x-rays, they were able to see a part of Rho's structure that was previously not very well understood.

At a press event on its Chrome operating system today, Google began by talking about the Chrome browser from which the operating system is growing. The company said it expects to launch versions of Chrome for Mac and Linux before the end of the year, as well as enabling browser extensions. Even with only a Windows version of the browser available, Google says Chrome has garnered 40 million users who treat it as their primary browser.

The stimulus plan passed by the US Congress earlier this year provided $21 billion for scientific R&D to be allocated through the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Energy, and other agencies. (The full text of the bill is available in this large pdf file.) The debate still rages amongst politicians and economists about just how many jobs the $787 billion bill has created. In the meantime, the government has launched an interesting website detailing where that scientific R&D money went.

Call it propaganda--the site is called ScienceWorksForUS--but it's interesting to browse through the detailed list and see which research projects were funded and for how much. You can browse by state from the homepage, and a full report is here in a large pdf file. A lion's share of the funds was allocated through the National Institutes of Health, and a browse through of projects funded in my home state of California reflects this. However, there was also an emphasis on renewable energy research. For analysis on stimulus funding of renewable energy technologies, check out Technology Review editor David Rotman's two-part feature on the subject here and here.