Signal gradients in 3-D guide stem cell behavior

Scientists know that physical and biochemical signals can guide cells to make, for example, muscle, blood vessels or bone. But the exact recipes to produce the desired tissues have proved elusive.

Histone exchanger comes into focus

The packaging of a gene has a major impact on its functional state and must be precisely controlled. A novel blend of methods has unveiled the architecture of a large protein complex that modulates DNA packing, and hints ...

Get touchy feely with plants

Forget talking to plants to help them grow, gently rubbing them with your fingers can make them less susceptible to disease, a paper in the open access journal BMC Plant Biology reveals.

Biologists uncover mechanisms for cholera toxin's deadly effects

Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have identified an underlying biochemical mechanism that helps make cholera toxin so deadly, often resulting in life-threating diarrhea that causes people to lose as much ...

Airborne imaging could revolutionise agriculture

An airborne camera capable of photographing the condition of certain crops over many acres of land could provide agriculturalists with the information they need to improve production. This is because, instead of simply recording ...

New method of incorporating fluoride into drugs

(Phys.org) —Synthetic biology is a science that aims to harness natural biological processes for other uses, such as in the manufacture of fuels and drugs. Now, synthetic biology researchers in the U.S. have developed a ...

New low-temperature chemical reaction explained

In all the centuries that humans have studied chemical reactions, just 36 basic types of reactions have been found. Now, thanks to the work of researchers at MIT and the University of Minnesota, a 37th type of reaction can ...

Making plants' inner qualities visible

A photographic airplane circles above an Australian vineyard in large arcs. An onboard camera takes pictures of the grapevines in regular intervals – anything but ordinary photos, though. Instead, this camera "looks" directly ...

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