Measuring the hardness of living tissues without damage

When a fertilized egg is developing into a fetus, cell populations forming tissues are in a fluid state, and thus, the tissue can be easily deformed. Cells also generate mechanical forces during development that contribute ...

Rabies trick could help treat Parkinson's disease

The rabies virus wreaks havoc on the brain, triggering psychosis and death. To get where it needs to go, the virus must first trick the nervous system and cross the blood brain barrier—a process that makes it of interest ...

Plants fix DNA differently from animals

In mammalian cells, the transcription factor p53 most responsible for healthy growth of the organism. The equivalent in plants is Suppressor Of Gamma Response 1 (SOG1), a factor that does not share a common evolutionary ancestor ...

Biologists' new peptide could fight many cancers

MIT biologists have designed a new peptide that can disrupt a key protein that many types of cancers, including some forms of lymphoma, leukemia, and breast cancer, need to survive.

Plant cells survive but stop dividing upon DNA damage

The cell cycle is the system through which a cell grows and divides. It is also how a cell passes its DNA to its progeny and is why the cell cycle ceases if the DNA is damaged, as otherwise it risks passing this damage to ...

The right way to repair DNA

Is it better to do a task quickly and make mistakes, or to do it slowly but perfectly? When it comes to deciding how to fix breaks in DNA, cells face the same choice between two major repair pathways. The decision matters, ...

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