Innovative approach opens the door to COVID nanobody therapies

COVID is not yet under control. Despite a bevy of vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, and antivirals, the virus continues to mutate and elude us. One solution that scientists have been exploring since the early days of the pandemic ...

Illuminating the evolution of social parasite ants

Ants are known as hard workers, tirelessly attending to their assigned tasks—foraging for food, nurturing larvae, digging tunnels, tidying the nest. But in truth, some are total layabouts. Called workerless social parasites, ...

Team identifies a nutrient that cancer cells crave

Arginine is an amino acid naturally produced by our bodies and plentiful in the fish, meat, and nuts that we eat. But as recent research in Science Advances reveals, arginine is an essential nutrient for cancer cells too. ...

Solving a crucial bottleneck in drug discovery

Many existing antibiotics were derived from soil bacteria, which naturally produce these toxins to ward off competitors. But efforts to draw more therapeutics from the ground have hit a snag. Most species cannot be grown ...

How a cell's mitochondria make their own protein factories

Ribosomes, the tiny protein-producing factories within cells, are ubiquitous and look largely identical across the tree of life. Those that keep bacteria chugging along are, structurally, not much different from the ribosomes ...

Fruit flies move their retinas much like humans move their eyes

Pick an object in front of you—a teacup, for example—and fix your gaze on it. You may think that you're keeping your eyes still, but you're not: Your eyes are frequently moving unbeknownst to you, making tiny involuntary ...

New evidence of biochemical states and force working in concert

Inside the leading edge of a crawling cell, intricate networks of rod-like actin filaments extend toward the cell membrane at various angles, lengthening protein by protein. Upon impact, the crisscrossing rods glance off ...

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