See also stories tagged with Biological Engineering
When a singer belts out a tune while a guitar player strums along, sound waves travel through the air, driving collective oscillations of the molecules within. Meanwhile, at the quantum level, something similar is going on. ...
Like so much else in nature, the human visual system has both a complex structure and functional efficiency that is difficult for scientists to replicate. The system is both a sensor and a processor, with the eyes and the ...
Bacteria from the Middle East have caused precipitation all the way out in California. The same bacteria, which are known to attack plants, have also been found embedded within lumps of hail in West Africa.
Biological tissues have a remarkable ability to organize and change shape, driven by forces generated by their own cells. One of the major challenges in bioengineering is harnessing this natural behavior to design synthetic ...
In tissue engineering, the tiniest bit of improper force can harm a living culture. Spheroids—3D clumps of cells—can be used to model complex human tissues, because they can re-create specific cell-to-cell and cell-to-matrix ...
Just as the human body relies on organs such as the heart or liver for essential functions, cells depend on their own tiny organs, or organelles, to carry out vital tasks, including transporting nutrients, removing waste, ...
For most of their lives, plants get their energy from photosynthesis. But during the seed to seedling stage, when they can't absorb light just yet, they rely on other sources, like fatty acids. To process the fatty acids, ...
There's a surprising amount of science in a bag of potato chips. Researchers have spent decades developing potatoes for chip makers that can grow in all kinds of climates, avoid diseases and pests, sit in storage for months ...
Enzymes called proteases act like molecular scissors for proteins in the body and play a role in therapies to stop viruses from replicating and to kill cancer cells. The development of these medicines, however, has been slowed ...
University of California San Diego researchers have developed a new tool for understanding and modifying any microbiome, including the human microbiome. The approach, called Microbial Interaction and Niche Determination (MIND), ...
