Process that controls tomato ripening discovered

(Phys.org)—Everyone loves a juicy, perfectly ripened tomato, and scientists have long sought ways to control the ripening process to improve fruit quality and prevent spoilage.

Siberian hamsters show what helps make seasonal clocks tick

Many animals, including humans, have internal clocks and calendars to help them regulate behavior, physiological functions and biological processes. Although scientists have extensively studied the timekeeping mechanisms ...

RNA's 'joints' play key role in our gene expression, scientists find

University of Chicago scientists have discovered a new wrinkle in our understanding of how our genes work. The team, led by Chuan He, the UChicago John T. Wilson Distinguished Service Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry ...

What makes vertebrates special? We can learn from lancelets

Scientists once thought that humans must have 2 million genes to account for all our complexity. But since sequencing the human genome, researchers have learned that humans only have about 19,000 to 25,000 genes—not many ...

Flavonoids: Little changes—large effects

(Phys.org) —Scientists at the University of York have discovered that very small chemical changes to dietary flavonoids cause very large effects when the plant natural products are tested for their impact on the human immune ...

Bacteria use caffeine as food source

A new bacterium that uses caffeine for food has been discovered by a doctoral student at the University of Iowa. The bacterium uses newly discovered digestive enzymes to break down the caffeine, which allows it to live and ...

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