Sixth sense: How do we sense electric fields?

A variety of animals are able to sense and react to electric fields, and living human cells will move along an electric field, for example in wound healing. Now a team lead by Min Zhao at the UC Davis Institute for Regenerative ...

Study reveals how nanochannels select potassium ions

(Phys.org)—One of the mysteries in biology is how cells can selectively diffuse potassium across a membrane. Biological systems rely on a delicate balance between these potassium and sodium ion concentrations in the surrounding ...

Studying dynamics of ion channels

Scientists from the Vaziri lab at the Vienna Biocenter, together with colleagues at the Institute for Biophysical Dynamics at the University of Chicago, have developed a method using infrared spectroscopy and atomistic modeling ...

Sodium pump could act as molecular light switch

Scientists from Jülich, Grenoble, Frankfurt and Moscow uncovered the atomic structure of KR2, a light-driven transporter for sodium ions which had only recently been discovered. Based on the structural information the team ...

Mechanism of the sodium-potassium pump revealed

Researchers from Aarhus University have collaborated with a Japanese group of researchers to establish the structure of a crucial enzyme—the so-called sodium-potassium pump—which forms part of every cell in the human ...

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