News tagged with developmental

Scientists discover molecular secrets of 2,000-year-old Chinese herbal remedy

For roughly two thousand years, Chinese herbalists have treated Malaria using a root extract, commonly known as Chang Shan, from a type of hydrangea that grows in Tibet and Nepal. More recent studies suggest that halofuginone, ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Feb 12, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (28) | comments 29 | with audio podcast

Simple genetic circuit forms stripes: Synthetic biology helps scientists sort out pattern formation

Many living things have stripes, but the developmental processes that create these and other patterns are complex and difficult to untangle. Now a team of scientists has designed a simple genetic circuit that creates a striped ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Oct 13, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Scientists produce first stem cells from endangered species

Starting with normal skin cells, scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have produced the first stem cells from endangered species. Such cells could eventually make it possible to improve reproduction ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Sep 04, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Rhesus monkeys have a form of self awareness not previously attributed to them

In the first study of its kind in an animal species that has not passed a critical test of self-recognition, cognitive psychologist Justin J. Couchman of the University at Buffalo has demonstrated that rhesus ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jul 05, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (7) | comments 16 | with audio podcast

Biologists capture cell's elusive 'motor' on videotape, solving the mystery of its deployment

(PhysOrg.com) -- In basic research with far-reaching impact, cell biologists Wei-Lih Lee and Steven Markus report in an article released today in Developmental Cell, with videos, that they have solved one of the fundamental questi ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created May 18, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (6) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Male maturity shaped by nutrition during first six months of life

It seems the old nature versus nurture debate can't be won. But a new Northwestern University study of men in the Philippines makes a strong case for nurture's role in male to female differences -- suggesting that rapid weight ...

Medicine & Health / Medical research

created Sep 13, 2010 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (12) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

A worm bites off enough to chew (w/ Video)

Dramatic scenes are played out under Ralf Sommer's microscope: his research object, the roundworm Pristionchus pacificus, bites another worm, tears open a hole in its side and devours the oozing contents. The sq ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jul 01, 2010 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Toxic mercury, accumulating in the Arctic, springs from a hidden source

(Phys.org) -- Environmental scientists at Harvard have discovered that the Arctic accumulation of mercury, a toxic element, is caused by both atmospheric forces and the flow of circumpolar rivers that carry ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created May 21, 2012 | popularity 3.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Meat eating led to earlier weaning, helped humans spread across globe

When early humans became carnivores, their higher-quality diet allowed mothers to wean babies earlier and have more children, with potentially profound effects on population dynamics and the course of human evolution, according ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Apr 18, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (6) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Bush embryonic stem cell lines different from newly derived cell lines

Established human embryonic cell lines, including those approved for federal research funding under former President George W. Bush, are different than newly derived human embryonic stem cell lines, according to a study by ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Dec 01, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Simple nerve cells regulate swimming depth of marine plankton

As planktonic organisms the larvae of the marine annelid Platynereis swim freely in the open water. They move by activity of their cilia, thousands of tiny hair-like structures forming a band along the larval ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Oct 18, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Researchers block morphine's itchy side effect

Itching is one of the most prevalent side effects of powerful, pain-killing drugs like morphine, oxycodone and other opioids. The opiate-associated itch is so common that even women who get epidurals for labor ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Oct 13, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Epigenetic changes don't last

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck would have been delighted: geneticists no longer dismiss out of hand his belief that acquired traits can be passed on to offspring. When Darwin published his book on evolution, Lamarck's ...

Biology / Evolution

created Sep 20, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Researchers solve mystery of disappearing bird digit

Evolution adds and subtracts, and nowhere is this math more evident than in vertebrates, which are programmed to have five digits on each limb. But many species do not. Snakes, of course, have no digits, and ...

Biology / Evolution

created Sep 04, 2011 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (5) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Manipulating plants' circadian clock may make all-season crops possible

Yale University researchers have identified a key genetic gear that keeps the circadian clock of plants ticking, a finding that could have broad implications for global agriculture.

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Sep 01, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 1 | with audio podcast