Math model reveals insight into how first life forms were 'born'

An international team of physicists have revealed insights into how the very first life-forms made the jump from the non-living to the living world, by mathematically modelling biological states using energy waves called ...

Sugar influences the onset of flowering, study finds

(Phys.org)—A plant can reproduce successfully only if it flowers at the appropriate time. Therefore, a complex network of photoreceptors and other proteins has evolved to monitor environmental conditions such as light and ...

Researchers learn from nature

A research team of scientists from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory of Grenoble and the Institut de Génétique et de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire (IGBMC) in Strasbourg have now, for the first time, succeeded ...

How our cells cope with toxic small molecules

In this week's issue of the prestigious journal Nature Chemical Biology, scientists Carole Linster (University of Luxembourg), Emile Van Schaftingen (Louvain University), and Andrew D. Hanson (University of Florida, Gainesville) ...

Unlocking nature's quantum engineering for efficient solar energy

(Phys.org)—Quantum scale photosynthesis in biological systems which inhabit extreme environments could hold key to new designs for solar energy and nanoscale devices. Certain biological systems living in low light environments ...

How computers push on the molecules they simulate

Because modern computers have to depict the real world with digital representations of numbers instead of physical analogues, to simulate the continuous passage of time they have to digitize time into small slices. This kind ...

Accelerating cellular assembly lines

The immune system generates antibodies to mark threats that need to be eliminated, and these protein complexes bind their targets with remarkable strength and selectivity. Scientists have learned how to generate cell lines ...

Was the Arab Spring a false one?

he Arab Spring has turned to winter. A year after protests, demonstrations and uprisings rocked the Arab world, hopes for peaceful transitions and free elections are fading in Egypt, Libya, and especially Syria, while elsewhere ...

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