Last update Microbes provide insights into evolution of human language, 6 hours ago
Big brains do not explain why only humans use sophisticated language, according to researchers who have discovered that even a species of pond life communicates by similar methods.
6 hours ago
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(Phys.org) —In communities of microbes, akin to 'slime jungles', cells evolve not just to grow faster than their rivals but also to push themselves to the surface of colonies where they gain the best access ...
16 hours ago
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Speed-reading is a technique used to read quickly. It involves visual searching for clues to meaning and skipping non-essential words and/ or sentences. Similarly to humans, biological systems are sometimes ...
14 hours ago
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The binding of hormones to their receptors plays a key role in the development of many organs of the body. The apelin receptor is expressed in the developing embryo, coming online many hours prior to its ...
15 hours ago
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(Phys.org) —A new technique that allows researchers to conduct experiments more rapidly and accurately is giving insights into the workings of proteins important in heart and muscle diseases.
16 hours ago
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Manure from dairy cows, which is commonly used as a farm soil fertilizer, contains a surprising number of newly identified antibiotic resistance genes from the cows' gut bacteria. The findings, reported in mBio the online ...
Apr 22, 2014
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We've all waited in line and most of us have gotten stuck in a check-out line longer than we would like. For Will Mather, assistant professor of physics and an instructor with the College of Science's Integrated Science Curriculum, ...
Apr 22, 2014
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For the first time, researchers have studied the Black Death bacterium's entire family tree to fully understand how some of the family members evolve to become harmful.
Apr 21, 2014
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Cell reprogramming converts specialised cells such as nerve cells or skin cells towards an embryonic stem cell state. This reversal in the evolutionary development of cells also requires a reversal in the ...
Apr 21, 2014
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Stem cells – the body's master cells – demonstrate a bizarre property never before seen at a cellular level, according to a study published today from scientists at the University of Cambridge. The property ...
Apr 20, 2014
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(Phys.org) —An international team of researchers, led by Robert Lanza, of Advanced Cell Technology, has announced that they have performed the first successful cloning of adult human skin cells into stem ...
Apr 18, 2014
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(Phys.org) —Cell movement plays an important role in a host of biological functions from embryonic development to repairing wounded tissue. It also enables cancer cells to break free from their sites of ...
Apr 18, 2014
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Bacteria's memories of hostile viruses are stronger than thought. Even when the intruders change their DNA sequence, the immune system of bacteria can recognise these and subsequently destroy them. That is ...
Apr 18, 2014
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Fruit flies are pretty predictable when it comes to scheduling their days, with peaks of activity at dawn and dusk and rest times in between. Now, researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports on April 17th h ...
Apr 17, 2014
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(Phys.org) —Cells use protein-signaling networks to process information from their surroundings and respond to constantly changing environments. This includes information about the presence or absence of ...
Apr 17, 2014
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The tropical disease malaria is caused by the Plasmodium parasite. For its survival and propagation, Plasmodium requires a protein called actin. Scientists of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI ...
Apr 17, 2014
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Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered an unexpected phenomenon in the organs that produce sperm in fruit flies: When a certain kind of stem cell is killed off experimentally, another group of non-stem cells can come out ...
Apr 17, 2014
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Gene expression is the process whereby the genetic information of DNA is used to manufacture functional products, such as proteins, which have numerous different functions in living organisms. Messenger RNA (mRNA) serves ...
Apr 17, 2014
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The "brush border" – a densely packed array of finger-like projections called microvilli – covers the surfaces of the cells that line our intestines.
Apr 16, 2014
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A research team at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel has discovered an protein family that plays a central role in the fight against the bacterial pathogen Salmonella within the cells. The so cal ...
Apr 16, 2014
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(Phys.org) —A football-shaped structure, known as the mitotic spindle, makes cell division possible for many living things. This piece of cellular architecture, responsible for dividing up genetic material, ...
Apr 16, 2014
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A team that includes scientists from the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Johns Hopkins University and St. Mary's University reported the structure of a protein that helps ...
Apr 16, 2014
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From far away, the top of a leaf looks like one seamless surface; however, up close, that smooth exterior is actually made up of a patchwork of cells in a variety of shapes and sizes. Interested in how these ...
Apr 16, 2014
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To reproduce or to conquer the world? Surprisingly, bacteria also face this problem. Theoretical biophysicists at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich have now shown how these organisms should ...
Apr 16, 2014
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It's a flu virus so deadly that scientists once halted research on the disease because governments feared it might be used by terrorists to stage a biological attack.
Apr 15, 2014
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An international team of researchers has for the first time deciphered the intestinal bacteria of present-day hunter-gatherers.
Photosynthesis provides fixed carbon and energy for nearly all life on Earth, yet many aspects of this fascinating process remain mysterious. For example, little is known about how it is regulated in response to changes in ...
Microbes can be highly efficient, versatile and sophisticated manufacturing tools, and have the potential to form the basis of a vibrant economic sector. In order to take full advantage of the opportunity microbial-based ...
Researchers from Aalto University and and the University of Eastern Finland have succeeded in creating a surface on nano-sized cellulose crystals that imitates a biological structure. The surface adsorbs ...
Food-poisoning outbreaks linked to disease-causing strains of the bacterium Escherichia coli are normally associated with tainted meat products. However, between 20-30% of these are caused by people eating contaminated vegeta ...
While setting out to fabricate new springs to support a cephalopod-inspired imaging project, a group of Harvard researchers stumbled upon a surprising discovery: the hemihelix, a shape rarely seen in nature.
(Phys.org) —The ability to control crystals with light and chemistry could lead to chameleon-style color-changing camouflage for vehicle bodies and other surfaces.
A fully functional quantum computer is one of the holy grails of physics. Unlike conventional computers, the quantum version uses qubits (quantum bits), which make direct use of the multiple states of quantum ...
Genetic mutations are commonly studied because of links to diseases such as cancer; however, little is known about mutations occurring in healthy individuals. In a study published online in Genome Research, resear ...
Despite a well-documented history of dramatic genetic decay, the human Y chromosome has over the course of millions of years of evolution managed to preserve a small set of genes that has ensured not only ...
It is the defining moment that demonstrates a QUT physicist was correct in pointing out a 99-year-old mistake to one of the world's most authoritative dictionaries.
(Phys.org) —A pair of researchers in the Department of Fisheries and Allied Aquacultures at Auburn University in Alabama has found that one type of fish responds to environmental noise by increasing the ...
Multi-sensory technology that creates soap bubbles, which can have images projected onto them or when the bubbles are burst release a scent, will be unveiled at an international conference later this month.
(Phys.org) —Click, clunk, whir, pitter-patter go the footsteps of numerous quadruped robots worldwide, but a recent report focuses on one walking robot, Pneupard, a project from Osaka University. Tuesday's ...
(Phys.org) —A large team of European researchers has finally revealed the purpose of the long, thin, needle-like bill sported by the famous sailfish. It's used, they report in their paper published in Proceedings of ...
Bacterial diseases cause millions of deaths every year. Most of these bacteria were benign at some point in their evolutionary past, and we don't always understand what turned them into disease-causing pathogens. ...
For more than a decade Chang Lu, associate professor of chemical engineering at Virginia Tech, has worked on the development of tools to efficiently analyze living cells. The long-term goal is to gain a better understanding ...
A team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has identified a long-sought protein that facilitates one of the most basic functions of cells: regulating their volume to keep from swelling excessively.
A new generation of high yield plants could be created following a fundamental change in our understanding of how plants develop.
(Phys.org) —You may not recognize it by name, but if you have ever had a child with a diaper rash, that child was likely a host to Candida albicans (C. albicans). This unwelcome "guest" can be hard to control, ...
Stacked 15 high, 1,500 culture plates line the bench of John Barlow's University of Vermont lab. This is the collection of just one day at one Vermont farmstead cheesemaker's farm.
Programming living cells offers the prospect of harnessing sophisticated biological machinery for transformative applications in energy, agriculture, water remediation and medicine. Inspired by engineering, researchers in ...
An amoeba parasite that causes potentially fatal dysentery in poor countries wreaks its havoc by eating intestinal cells alive, scientists reported on Wednesday.
(Phys.org) —A new analysis of NASA satellite data shows Africa's Congo rainforest, the second-largest tropical rainforest in the world, has undergone a large-scale decline in greenness over the past decade.
What if spacetime were a kind of fluid? This is the question tackled by theoretical physicists working on quantum gravity by creating models attempting to reconcile gravity and quantum mechanics. Some of ...
(Medical Xpress)—An intriguing study conducted by Benjamin Charlton, of the University of Sussex, has resulted in findings that suggest women prefer male composers that produce complex pieces of music when ...
Treating cadmium-telluride (CdTe) solar cell materials with cadmium-chloride improves their efficiency, but researchers have not fully understood why. Now, an atomic-scale examination of the thin-film solar ...
The road uniting quantum field theory and general relativity – the two great theories of modern physics – has been impassable for 80 years. Could a tool from condensed matter physics finally help map ...
(Phys.org) —Like a hungry diner ripping open a dinner roll, a fuel cell catalyst that converts hydrogen into electricity must tear open a hydrogen molecule. Now researchers have captured a view of such ...
Researchers at UNSW Australia have for the first time used electrical pulses delivered from a cochlear implant to deliver gene therapy, thereby successfully regrowing auditory nerves.
"I think one can argue that if we were to follow a strong nuclear energy pathway—as well as doing everything else that we can—then we can solve the climate problem without doing geoengineering." So says Tom Wigley, one ...
Maximum water levels in New York harbor during major storms have risen by nearly two and a half feet since the mid-1800s, making the chances of water overtopping the Manhattan seawall now at least 20 times ...
(Phys.org) —A new study published this week in the journal Nature by the USDA Agricultural Research Service, and Fort Lewis College and Colorado State University researchers demonstrates that higher atmosp ...
The trope that the likelihood of an accurate group decision increases with the abundance of brains involved might not hold up when a collective faces a variety of factors—as often happens in life and nature. ...
The humble aspirin may have just added another beneficial effect beyond its ability to ameliorate headaches and reduce the risk of heart attacks: lowering colon cancer risk among people with high levels of ...
Today women take an active part in public life. Without a doubt, they also converse with other women. In fact, they even talk to each other about other things besides men. As banal as it sounds, this is far ...
Environmentalists Wednesday urged the United States to drop plans to haul India to the WTO to open its solar market, saying the action would hurt the fight against climate change.
A degenerative eye disease slowly robbed Roger Pontz of his vision. Diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa as a teenager, Pontz has been almost completely blind for years. Now, thanks to a high-tech procedure ...
The Australian Attorney General, Senator George Brandis is no stranger to controversy. His statement in parliament that "people do have a right to be bigots" rapidly gained him notoriety, and it isn't hard to understand why ...
A young female scientist accused of fabricating data made a tearful apology live on Japanese television Wednesday for "mistakes" in her research, but insisted her ground-breaking conclusions on stem cells were accurate.
A young female researcher is preparing to fight claims that her ground-breaking stem cell study was fabricated, her lawyer said Tuesday, as Japan's male-dominated scientific establishment circled its wagons.
The structure of a key part of the machinery that allows cells to divide has been identified by researchers at the University of California, Davis—opening new possibilities for throwing a wrench in the machine and blocking ...
Medical compounds harvested from a marine sponge are actually produced by symbiotic bacteria living in the sponges.
Corralling desperados with names like bacillus and paenibacillus will require ingenuity and an arsenal of weapons. These outlaws aren't rustling cattle—they're making milk sour and cheese soft and crumbly.
A NASA scientist is launching a one-to-two-year pilot project this summer that takes advantage of U.S. high-voltage power transmission lines to measure a phenomenon that has caused widespread power outages ...
Spacewalking astronauts easily replaced a dead computer outside the International Space Station on Wednesday and got their orbiting home back up to full strength.
If the Heartbleed security threat teaches us anything, it's that passwords don't offer total protection.
Prostate cancer becomes deadly when anti-hormone treatments stop working. Now a new study suggests a way to block the hormones at their entrance.
Researchers at Washington State University Spokane have developed a new way to detect when drivers are about to nod off behind the wheel.
Sequencing an entire human genome is faster and cheaper than ever before, leading to an explosion of studies comparing the genomes of people with and without a given disease. Often clinicians and researchers studying genetic ...
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