An analysis of enzymes that load amino acids onto transfer RNAs—an operation at the heart of protein translation—offers new insights into the evolutionary origins of the modern genetic code, researchers report. Their ...
Biotechnology
Aug 26, 2013
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They lie dormant for years, but at the first sign of favorable conditions they awaken. This sounds like the tagline for a science fiction movie, but it describes the amazing life-cycles of microbial organisms that form the ...
Environment
Jun 14, 2013
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Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have identified patterns of epigenomic diversity that not only allow plants to adapt to various environments, but could also benefit crop production and the study of ...
Biotechnology
Mar 6, 2013
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Four billion years ago, soon after the planet cooled enough for life to begin, primordial cells may have replicated and divided without protein machinery or cell walls, relying instead on just a flimsy lipid membrane. New ...
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 28, 2013
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Vertebrates' transition to living on land, instead of only in water, represented a major event in the history of life. Now, researchers reporting in the December issue of the journal Developmental Cell provide new evidence ...
Biotechnology
Dec 10, 2012
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The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can contain dozens of different mutations, called polymorphisms. In a recent study an international team of researchers, including MU scientists, found that one of those mutations, called ...
Biochemistry
Sep 13, 2012
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(Phys.org)—A study of more than 6,000 genes in a common species of yeast has identified the pathways that govern the instability of GAA/TTC repeats. In humans, the expansions of these repeats is known to inactivate a gene ...
Cell & Microbiology
Sep 10, 2012
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Before any cell - healthy or cancerous - can divide, it has to replicate its DNA. So scientists who want to know how normal cells work - and perhaps how to stop abnormal ones - are keen to understand this ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 6, 2012
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Studying chemical modifications in the chromosomes of cells is akin to searching for changes in coiled spaghetti. Scientists at Cornell have figured out how to stretch out tangled strands of DNA from chromosomes, ...
Analytical Chemistry
Oct 31, 2011
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Biologists have long known that organisms from bacteria to humans use the 24 hour cycle of light and darkness to set their biological clocks. But exactly how these clocks are synchronized at the molecular level to perform ...
Cell & Microbiology
Sep 1, 2011
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