How the ancient messengers cAMP and cGMP deliver their messages

Two highly similar molecules with essential but often contrasting signaling roles in most life forms exert their distinct effects through subtle differences in their bindings to their signaling partners, according to a new ...

Metal-poor stars are more life-friendly, suggests study

Stars that contain comparatively large amounts of heavy elements provide less favorable conditions for the emergence of complex life than metal-poor stars, as scientists from the Max Planck Institutes for Solar System Research ...

Without this, plants cannot respond to temperature

UC Riverside scientists have significantly advanced the race to control plant responses to temperature on a rapidly warming planet. Key to this breakthrough is miRNA, a molecule nearly 200,000 times smaller than the width ...

Single gene causes stinging cell to lose its sting

When scientists disabled a single regulatory gene in a species of sea anemone, a stinging cell that shoots a venomous miniature harpoon for hunting and self-defense shifted to shoot a sticky thread that entangles prey instead, ...

When was the first time life began to prey on each other?

Using the word predation may seem surprising when we talk about the first organisms that set out to eat other organisms, for they were not deadly predators with sharp teeth and claws, but small single-celled life forms that ...

Study finds effect of Earth's orbit on ancient microorganisms

Curtin University researchers studying molecular fossils or "biomarkers" from deep beneath the Chicxulub impact crater have found evidence of how microorganisms changed in response to fluctuations in the Earth's climate, ...

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