Physicists use hair fluorescence to repurpose human hair waste

Physicists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed an innovative method of converting human hair waste into a functional material that can be used to encrypt sensitive information or detect environmental ...

Slightly lost bumble bees use scent to find their way home

Put yourself in the exoskeleton of a bumble bee for a moment: Your world would be a riot of colors and scents, both essential to guide your search for pollen and nectar. Bumble bees have excellent vision: They have a pair ...

Biochemists use new tool to control mRNA by means of light

A team of researchers at the Institute of Biochemistry at Münster University discovered that by using so-called FlashCaps they were able to control the translation of mRNA by means of light. The results have been published ...

Can algae unlock the secrets of photosynthesis?

A team led by current and former Carnegie plant biologists has undertaken the largest ever functional genomic study of a photosynthetic organism. Their work, published in Nature Genetics, could inform strategies for improving ...

A molecular glue for turning on human cell pluripotency

There are cells in the body known as pluripotent stem cells that are yet to specialize in a particular biological function. These cells maintain the potential to become any of the possible cell types in an organism. Pluripotent ...

An unexpected attraction between nucleic acids and fat

All cells on Earth are enveloped in a fatty layer of lipids. Lipid membranes protect the content of the cells, including genetic information such as RNA and DNA. A new study from the researchers at the B CUBE—Center for ...

Lab one step closer to understanding how life started on Earth

How did life begin on Earth and could it exist elsewhere? Researchers at Simon Fraser University have isolated a genetic clue—an enzyme known as an RNA polymerase—that provides new insights about the origins of life. ...

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