Ants are known as hard workers, tirelessly attending to their assigned tasks—foraging for food, nurturing larvae, digging tunnels, tidying the nest. But in truth, some are total layabouts. Called workerless social parasites, ...
Evolution
Mar 3, 2023
0
148
Arginine is an amino acid naturally produced by our bodies and plentiful in the fish, meat, and nuts that we eat. But as recent research in Science Advances reveals, arginine is an essential nutrient for cancer cells too. ...
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 2, 2023
0
181
The male reproductive system serves as a hotspot for the emergence of new genes. Perhaps that explains why more new mutations are inherited from fathers than from mothers. It doesn't, however, clarify why older fathers pass ...
Evolution
Jan 12, 2023
0
46
Many existing antibiotics were derived from soil bacteria, which naturally produce these toxins to ward off competitors. But efforts to draw more therapeutics from the ground have hit a snag. Most species cannot be grown ...
Biotechnology
Jan 5, 2023
0
51
Ribosomes, the tiny protein-producing factories within cells, are ubiquitous and look largely identical across the tree of life. Those that keep bacteria chugging along are, structurally, not much different from the ribosomes ...
Cell & Microbiology
Dec 8, 2022
0
18
Life in an ant colony is a symphony of subtle interactions between insects acting in concert, more like cells in tissue than independent organisms bunking in a colony. Now, researchers have discovered a previously unknown ...
Evolution
Nov 30, 2022
1
275
Pick an object in front of you—a teacup, for example—and fix your gaze on it. You may think that you're keeping your eyes still, but you're not: Your eyes are frequently moving unbeknownst to you, making tiny involuntary ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 27, 2022
0
29
Inside the leading edge of a crawling cell, intricate networks of rod-like actin filaments extend toward the cell membrane at various angles, lengthening protein by protein. Upon impact, the crisscrossing rods glance off ...
Biochemistry
Oct 26, 2022
0
35
America was unprepared for the magnitude of the pandemic, which overwhelmed many counties and filled some hospitals to capacity. A new paper in PNAS suggests there may have been a mathematical method, of sorts, to the madness ...
Mathematics
Oct 24, 2022
0
96
It's impossible to hide from a female mosquito—she will hunt down any member of the human species by tracking our CO2 exhalations, body heat, and body odor. But some of us are distinct "mosquito magnets" who get more than ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Oct 18, 2022
1
207
