(PhysOrg.com) -- The brute force of Bacillus anthracis, the ancient scourge that causes anthrax, can sweep through and overpower a two-ton animal in under 72 hours. But when it isn't busy claiming livestock and humans throughout ...
Cell & Microbiology
Aug 12, 2009
6
0
(PhysOrg.com) -- In 1953, Stanley Miller filled two flasks with chemicals assumed to be present on the primitive Earth, connected the flasks with rubber tubes and introduced some electrical sparks as a stand-in for lightning. ...
Cell & Microbiology
Aug 7, 2009
14
0
The parasite Trypanosoma brucei, which causes African sleeping sickness, is like a thief donning a disguise. Every time the host's immune cells get close to destroying the parasite, it escapes detection by rearranging its ...
Cell & Microbiology
Apr 15, 2009
1
0
(PhysOrg.com) -- In 1913 Theodore Roosevelt added cartographer to his resume when he and his crew ventured up an unspeakably dangerous and uncharted tributary named the River of Doubt. Now, on a charting expedition of their ...
Jan 8, 2009
1
0
(PhysOrg.com) -- To help protect its genes, a cell is highly selective about what it allows to move in and out of its nucleus. Yet that choosiness is regulated by just a thin barrier, perforated with tiny transport machines ...
Jan 6, 2009
0
0
It's one of life's most defining moments—that crucial step in embryonic development, when an indistinct ball of cells rearranges itself into the orderly three-layered structure that sets the stage for all to come. Known ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 25, 2024
0
14
The bacterium behind tuberculosis is a wily foe, adept at bobbing and weaving around the immune system and antibiotics alike. Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) has been notoriously difficult to eradicate, often dormant in ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 20, 2024
0
1
When a child falls off her bike and scrapes her knee, skin stem cells rush to the rescue, growing new epidermis to cover the wound. But only some of the stem cells that will ultimately patch her up are normally dedicated ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 7, 2024
0
114
Sparks fly when a female nematode meets her mate in a Petri dish. Tracking him by smell, she beelines over and is pregnant within moments of physical contact. But for the hermaphroditic version of these tiny roundworms, it's ...
Evolution
Mar 7, 2024
0
116
Helicases are enzymes that unwind DNA and RNA. They're central to cellular life, implicated in a number of cancers and infections—and, alas, extraordinarily difficult to target with drugs.
Biochemistry
Mar 7, 2024
0
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