What roundworms can teach us about human growth

Human beings and the roundworm C. elegans have more in common than you'd expect. Thanks to a common ancestor more than 700 million years ago humans and roundworms have a similar hormone to drive and regulate growth. By activating ...

A single target for microRNA regulation

It has generally been believed that microRNAs control biological processes by simultaneously, though modestly, repressing a large number of genes. But in a study published in Developmental Cell, a group of scientists led ...

Stopping the worm from turning

Almost one in six people worldwide are infected by parasitic worms, while parasitic infections of livestock cause economic losses of billions of Euro per year. Resistance to the few drugs available to treat infections is ...

DNA barcoding of parasitic worms: Is it kosher?

When rabbis from the Orthodox Union started finding worms in cans of sardines and capelin eggs, they turned to scientists at the American Museum of Natural History to answer a culturally significant dietary question: could ...

Making the worms turn

To biophysicist Aravinthan Samuel, the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans provides a pathway to understanding the brain and nervous system, first of the worm, then of higher animals, and even, perhaps, of humans.

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