Your DNA holds the blueprint to build your body, but it's a living document: Adjustments to the design can be made by epigenetic marks.
Molecular & Computational biology
Feb 28, 2022
0
1748
Stationary marine organisms that don't ply the ocean, but spend their lives rooted in one spot, have evolved impressive ways to capture prey. The sea anemone Nematostella, for instance, burrows into salt marsh sediments and ...
Ecology
Jan 8, 2022
0
133
For two people to communicate in a loud, crowded room, they need to be standing side by side. The same is often true for neurons in the brain. But the same way a cell phone allows two people to communicate clearly across ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 29, 2021
0
169
What's a hungry marine microbe to do when the pickings are slim? It must capture nutrients—nitrogen, phosphorus, or iron—to survive, yet in vast expanses of the ocean, nutrients are extremely scarce. And the stakes are ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 19, 2021
1
88
Many animals have evolved camouflage tactics for self-defense, but some butterflies and moths have taken it even further: They've developed transparent wings, making them almost invisible to predators.
Plants & Animals
Jun 10, 2021
0
528
Plastics are everywhere. From cell phones to pens and cars to medical devices, the modern world is full of plastic— and plastic waste. New research from scientists at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) Ecosystems Center ...
Environment
Jun 4, 2021
1
154
Nitrogen is an element basic for life—plants need it, animals need it, it's in our DNA—but when there's too much nitrogen in the environment, things can go haywire. On Cape Cod, excess nitrogen in estuaries and salt marshes ...
Environment
Apr 12, 2021
0
261
Egg cells start out as round blobs. After fertilization, they begin transforming into people, dogs, fish, or other animals by orienting head to tail, back to belly, and left to right. Exactly what sets these body orientation ...
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 4, 2021
4
1630
It sounds like a "Just So Story"—"How the Insect Got its Wings"—but it's really a mystery that has puzzled biologists for over a century. Intriguing and competing theories of insect wing evolution have emerged in recent ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 1, 2020
1
195
Octopuses have the most flexible appendages known in nature, according to a new study in Scientific Reports. In addition to being soft and strong, each of the animal's eight arms can bend, twist, elongate and shorten in many ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 30, 2020
0
225
