Researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil have discovered 45 new toxins produced by Salmonella bacteria, some of which are associated with foodborne infections. The study was conducted at the Center for Research ...
For decades, biologists assumed a cell's energy simply diffused to wherever it was needed. It turns out the most important destination of all has a private delivery line.
All cells in animals, plants, fungi, and protists share a fundamental characteristic: they are eukaryotic cells—complex cells with specialized internal compartments. The cells that make up our bodies are no exception.
Hiroshima University researchers say a newly proposed three-step "detour" pathway for making dolichol, a molecule cells need to properly process proteins, may be more universal than scientists realized. Experiments in yeast ...
Decomposers are crucial for keeping Earth habitable, breaking down dead biomass and returning key nutrients, such as carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus, to the ecosystem. Most decomposers, including fungi, survive through osmotrophy—a ...
Living in the Dead Sea would be a very unpleasant experience for most creatures. With salt concentration above 30% and temperatures ranging from 10–50°C, it takes unique environmental adaptations to survive in such harsh ...
It's tricky to make an exact copy of yourself. Or at least it is for cells undergoing mitosis, where cells replicate everything inside of them, including their neatly packaged DNA, then split in half. Rice University professor ...
Earth was mostly devoid of oxygen for much of its 4.5 billion year lifetime. That is, until certain processes started to allow for the eventual buildup of oxygen up to the levels we have now (around 21% of the atmosphere). ...
A University of Texas at Austin-led team has reconstructed the most detailed map to date of the molecular machines that carried out the functions of life in an ancient ancestor that gave rise to all complex life on Earth, ...
In evolutionary biology, all life on Earth is theoretically part of a single phylogenetic tree, indicating common ancestry. This model suggests that every living organism can be traced back to a distant common ancestor. However, ...
