Flexible throughout life by varying numbers of chromosome copies

Baker's yeast is a popular test organism in biology. Yeasts are able to duplicate single chromosomes reversibly and thereby adapt flexibly to environmental conditions. Scientists from the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine ...

Fly society

(Phys.org) —USC Dornsife's Sergey Nuzhdin, professor of molecular biology, uses fruit flies to examine whether behavior is genetic- or social environment-based. The team provided proof for the first time that grouping according ...

Why do we gesticulate?

If you rely on hand gestures to get your point across, you can thank fish for that! Scientists have found that the evolution of the control of speech and hand movements can be traced back to the same place in the brain, which ...

Biological fitness trumps other traits in mating game

When a new species emerges following adaptive changes to its local environment, the process of choosing a mate can help protect the new species' genetic identity and increase the likelihood of its survival. But of the many ...

Learned helplessness in flies and the roots of depression

When faced with impossible circumstances beyond their control, animals, including humans, often hunker down as they develop sleep or eating disorders, ulcers, and other physical manifestations of depression. Now, researchers ...

Pig wasting syndrome costing farmers millions

Stark new figures show that a common pig virus, present on 99 per cent of pig farms has major economic implications for individual farmers and the pig industry as a whole, costing British farmers as much as £84 per pig (if ...

Controlling inflammatory and immune responses

Researchers at the IRCM, led by geneticist Dr. Jacques Drouin, recently defined the interaction between two essential proteins that control inflammation. This important breakthrough will be published in tomorrow's print edition ...

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