They say you can't judge a book by its cover. But the human immune system does just that when it comes to finding and attacking harmful microbes such as the coronavirus. It relies on being able to recognize foreign intruders ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jun 13, 2020
0
1357
It is a deep question, from deep in our history: when did human language as we know it emerge? A new survey of genomic evidence suggests our unique language capacity was present at least 135,000 years ago. Subsequently, language ...
Evolution
Mar 14, 2025
4
1337
In the early 1960s, University of Michigan alumnus Marshall Nirenberg and a few other scientists deciphered the genetic code of life, determining the rules by which information in DNA molecules is translated into proteins, ...
Evolution
Jun 8, 2022
0
1335
Collagen, the protein that builds skin, bones, tendons and organs, exists inside cells as a liquidlike droplet rather than the long, rigid rod seen in textbooks over the last half-century, according to a new study from the ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jun 11, 2026
0
1297
Light is a universal stimulus that influences all living things. Cycles of light and dark help set the biological clocks for organisms ranging from single-celled bacteria to human beings. Some bacteria use photosynthesis ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 20, 2026
0
1285
When closely related species mate, their offspring sometimes survive but cannot reproduce. This pattern often affects males first, with hybrid males frequently failing to produce functional sperm even when hybrid females ...
Evolution
Mar 9, 2026
0
1276
A simple roadside weed may hold the key to understanding and predicting DNA mutation, according to new research from University of California, Davis, and the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Germany.
Evolution
Jan 12, 2022
4
3389
Scientists who study glacier ice have found viruses nearly 15,000 years old in two ice samples taken from the Tibetan Plateau in China. Most of those viruses, which survived because they had remained frozen, are unlike any ...
Evolution
Jul 20, 2021
3
2913
Cells will ramp up gene expression in response to physical forces alone, a new study finds. Gene activation, the first step of protein production, starts less than one millisecond after a cell is stretched—hundreds of times ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Apr 1, 2020
0
1462
Over the past decade, the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system has revolutionized genetic engineering, allowing scientists to make targeted changes to organisms' DNA. While the system could potentially be useful in treating a ...
Biotechnology
Apr 9, 2021
12
1904
